Under Fire (Elite Force #3)(78)
Author: Catherine Mann

“Move to the Everglades permanently? My car’s already there.”

Cuervo looked at him, really looked, with a maturity gained from the job more than of years. “If all the good ones like you get out, we’re stuck with leaders like General Dickhead.”

A laugh punched up and out. God, he loved his guys. “I appreciate the sentiment.”

They settled into silence, soaking up that side benefit of being a team, spending hours in the field or on the road together. They didn’t have to fill every second with meaningless chitchat. When they spoke, it counted. It meant something. And it was clear Cuervo had something more on his mind.

Finally, Liam nudged. “Go ahead and spit it out, kid. Whatever it is you need to say.”

Cuervo stared at the floor, scuffing the heel of a gym shoe while he gathered his thoughts just right. “Seriously, I get that it’s tough to stay in this profession, to screw over the ones you love again and again because the mission calls. I see that grief with the other guys in the unit over busted relationships. At what point does a guy go from being an altruistic serviceman to becoming a cold bastard ignoring the needs of his family?” He frowned. “God knows, I don’t have the answer.”

Liam swallowed hard, thinking of his exes, the breakups, the pain he’d caused.

Cuervo looked up, pinning Liam with clear trusting eyes that would follow him into hell if he asked. “But I do know whatever happened in the past is the past. And the man I see in front of me today is sitting firmly on the altruistic side.”

Liam scratched his chest right over his heart, which was starting to pump hard. Back in the plane, he’d realized how damn foolish it was to let Rachel go. But if he got out of the air force, his life forked in a different direction from hers or so he’d thought during that stupid-ass fight back at the cabin.

And if he stayed in the air force, well, the odds didn’t bode well for military marriages, especially ones around his career field. “I’ve got a chance here with Rachel and I don’t want to wreck it by making the same mistakes all over again.”

“Then don’t make ’em. You aren’t that guy from before. It’s that simple.”

Could it be that easy? Could the kid be right in teaching the old guy?

Jose James pushed away from the wall. “Look for a purple Jeep. Sorry about the color. It was the only Wrangler at the rental place. Enjoy your ride, sir.”

Liam watched Cuervo all the way into the dark parking lot, where he climbed into a silver sports car with Data at the wheel.

As they drove off, Rachel stepped around a cubicle wall, wearing borrowed surgical scrubs and holding an ice pack to her jaw. Butterfly bandages held together a split in her lip and another along her temple. He wanted to reach for her, but wasn’t sure where it would be safe to touch her.

“Are you okay?”

“Bill’s paid. Doctor says I’ll be fine. No broken bones. Just a whopper bruise. The general hits like a girl.” She snorted on a laugh, then winced. “Okay, moratorium on jokes for a while.”

He rethought his stance on kicking the crap out of the guy. He readjusted the ice pack over the Technicolor bruise climbing up from her jaw. “Maybe we should go back in to see the doc again.”

“I’m all right, Liam, really.” She tapped his temple. “Think like a medic and you’ll be able to dial back the worry. But what about you? Are you okay? What you did to save me up there… that was nuts.”

“I’m fine. Didn’t have to hammer my old knees with a jump, so it’s all good.” He waved away discussion of their time in the air, for the most part still a blur to him because he’d been so in the zone, focused completely on the mission. Maybe later he could decompress it, pull it out to examine for others to use in future rescues.

For now, he only wanted to think about Rachel, alive. Thank God, alive.

Looping an arm around her shoulders, he tucked her against his side, carefully, watching for the least flinch from her. “Let’s go home.”

“Where would that be?” She glanced up at him, her brown eyes dark, serious.

“Home with me,” he said as the electric doors swooshed open.

She didn’t argue, which he hoped meant she agreed. She just walked alongside him quietly, step for step in sync, like when he was with his team. Somewhere along the way, she’d become his partner, and he’d almost stupidly thrown that away.

He angled his head so he could smell her hair as the wind tossed it around. “I was thinking you could recover at my place, since you’re currently homeless. I keep a clean house—should hold up to chick standards. My mom taught me that too, along with cooking, to make sure I was independent, you know, for after she died.”

Dredging up that little painful nugget from his childhood hadn’t been easy, but he was trying to be Joe Sensitive here, opening up and sharing something of himself the way the counselors had always been digging at him to do. Would she recognize that he was trying?

“Your mom sounds like a wise and practical woman.” She glanced up, her jaw purple, her eyes full of… him. “Do you have a picture of her at your house?”

“I do. A few of them in an album tucked away.”

“Good, I would like to see them.”

And just that easily, she’d agreed to go with him. As Cuervo said, sometimes life was just that simple.

“First thing tomorrow,” he promised. “I’ll find them.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Can we pick up the dogs at Sunny’s on the way home tonight?”

He exhaled, hard, relief whooshing through him as they made plans, wove their lives together. “Of course.”

“And can you pick out a new name for Fang, please? I really don’t like it now that I know what it means.”

“Okay, we’ll call her Rocki.” In honor of the Afghanistan dog, Rocky. Yeah, that fit. It felt right. The way Rachel against his side felt right. “Rocki’s mine, you know.”

She smiled up at him, then winced. “Ouch.” She adjusted the ice pack. “Tomorrow, I’d like to drive down to Catriona’s place and get the rest of my dogs too.”

He frowned, weaving around an ambulance on his way to patient parking. “How many would that be exactly?”

“Don’t make me laugh. And don’t worry. Just a couple more, Tabitha and Ruby Two.”

“Four dogs total.” Sounded like a family to him. His chest clenched up a little more, but he wasn’t going to surrender to that fear. He was through self-destructing. “Cool. No problem. I can swing that.”