Fight By The Team (Team Fear Book 2) (9 page)

“I’m not getting married,” he said around a bite.

“Really?” A man like him with six sisters and a caregiving soul? Oh, he’d get married as soon as some smart woman figured out how to rope him. “Why’s that?”

He shrugged. “Don’t plan to live that long.”

A pang hit her chest more painful than the gunshot wound. “Ryder isn’t convinced that this fearless thing is a death sentence.”

“He’s seeing things through the eyes of a husband. He wants to believe he’ll be around for Lauren.” Rose grabbed a chip and chewed on it thoughtfully. “I hope he’s right, but I’m not banking on it.”

“You don’t strike me as a pessimist.”

“Vegas odds are about five to one against us living to see next year.”

That kind of realism hurt as bad as getting shot. “I’ll take that bet. If you die, I owe you twenty bucks, but if you’re around to see the ball drop New Years Eve, you pay me one hundred.”

“Must be new math. Don’t you mean twenty?”

“Nope. You said five to one odds.”

“If I lose the bet, I won’t be around to collect. Seems win-win for you.”

Nothing about this was a winning situation. Water and pain pill swished in her agitated gut. “Guess you’ll have to stick around.”

He finished his sandwich before he spoke again. “Eat up.”

She shoved the plate halfway across the table. The talk of death and dying didn’t do much for her appetite. “I’m really not hungry.”

“Eat half. You need something in your stomach with the pain pill I gave you.”

Her stomach was pitchy, but that had more to do with the topic of conversation than the medicine. Still, she didn’t argue. She put her half on a napkin. “You can have the rest.”

He reached across the table as she pushed the sandwich toward him, and their hands brushed. An instant flare of feel-good nerves shot up her arm. A chemical reaction, the right compounds in the petri dish of their tiny motel room. Add time, plus the catalyst of that one brief touch. Boom. The result was combustible. Neither controlled the reaction, but neither had to act on it. Better for both if they kept that mess of hormones locked up.

She stared at the Formica tabletop and chewed her sandwich in silence. When her eyes drifted closed, she placed the last few bites on her plate. She didn’t say a word as she climbed into bed, but she couldn’t prevent the sense of loss eating her stomach lining. She’d never had Rose, but the thought of losing him left her empty inside. She’d find a way to cheat death and the men hunting Team Fear.

A
lump
the size of a super soldier lay prone on the bed nearest the door. Unable to sleep, Debi stared at his profile in the dark. The ache in her heart matched the constant throbbing in her shoulder. She tried to adjust the pillow, but the sling kept her arm immobile.

“Get some sleep.” Rose didn’t move, but he didn’t drift to sleep either.

A sliver of light filtered in from the bathroom, but otherwise the room was dark. “You on guard duty or medic duty?” When he didn’t answer, she punched her pillow. There was no position that was remotely comfortable. “How long have I been out?”

“No time at all.” Rose cleared his throat. “It’s the middle of the night, and you need rest. Take another pain pill or I’ll give you a shot.”

She was set to argue on principle. The injury wasn’t what kept her awake. Plus, obedience wasn’t her thing. Until she remembered how he’d taken care of her, and not just during the shooting. He had talked her down from the panic attack rather than do his job. Tonight was the first night he’d had a chance to sleep. She owed him, for far more than the last few days.

She opened the bottle using her good hand and swallowed a pill with the last of the water. Before he’d gone to bed, he had made sure everything was on the nightstand where she’d need it. Who was this guy? He was supposed to be a big, badass soldier, but he had an unexpected depth. He was selfless and kind and... That was the pain medicine talking.

She glanced at the other bed. He lay facing her, his jaw lined with whiskers, and his eyes closed as if his order should have been followed already.

Let him sleep.

“Fine,” she whispered to herself, but when they were both back to full speed, the soldier needed to learn a lesson about women and the tragically overused word
obey
.

“What’s the problem?”

Debi was startled to realize he’d opened his eyes and was staring at her. “A minute ago, I took a horse tranquilizer. I’ll be fine. Get some sleep.”

“Six sisters, remember? Fine has many definitions, and not one of them means everything is okay.” He sat up and dropped his legs over the side showing too much bare skin. He’d stripped down to boxers again. A fine mat of hair covered legs corded like tree trunks. The ball of muscle at his calf looked stronger than all the muscles in her body combined. He scrubbed hands through his short hair, making it stand on end. “Having a hard time getting comfortable?”

He was up now and digging in. Telling him she was fine wouldn’t cut it, so she went with honesty. “I can’t sleep on my back, but when I lay on my good side...”

“The injury feels unsupported?”

“Exactly.” Every time she had a nap jerk on the way to sleep, her shoulder twitched, pain zipped, and she was awake again.

The dim light didn’t show his features, but he stood with fluid efficiency. He brushed a hand over her temple. “No fever.”

“Opposite actually. My toes are freezing.”

He pulled something from his bag and shifted the blankets off her legs. The warmth was instant when he slipped oversized socks on her feet. The shivers were already fading when he pulled the sheet and comforter back over her. He grabbed both pillows from his bed. “We can prop the arm for you. Scoot back.” When she complied, he dropped the pillows in front of her body, and then gently lifted her arm to rest on the pillows.

The absence of stretching pain was instant. “But I don’t want to steal your pillows.”

“You won’t.” He walked around the bed, pulled back the covers, and climbed into bed with her. The bed dipped with his weight and she started rolling back until he braced his body behind hers. “Now you won’t roll back and your arm is supported. Better?”

Better was subjective. “The shoulder feels much better.” But now she had a whole new reason not to sleep. She was in bed with Rose, a man she’d spent the last week fantasizing about in graphic detail, but none of it compared to the solid wall of muscle at her back. The man was seriously hot, and he was draped over her like a blanket. If she had a free hand, she’d push back the bedspread and let some cool air in.

He punched the pillow under his head into a ball. One hand slid under her neck while the other draped lightly over her waist. “This okay?”

Okay? Her heart about jumped out of her chest. The strength of his arms was nirvana. The gears in her head turned overtime, and she still couldn’t process a proper response. The timing of their little snuggle fest couldn’t be worse. “Perfect.” She cringed. Being in his arms was perfect, but did she have to blurt it out?

He didn’t move. “Go to sleep.”

“Is that an order?”

He tucked himself tighter around her.

“If I could stay awake just to spite you, I would.”

Rose chuckled. “Try it, sweetheart, and I’ll have a shot in you faster than an undergrad on spring break.”

“That’s not a very evolved mentality. Aren’t there laws about that?”

“Sweetheart, we’ve broken more laws than Bonnie and Clyde. And I’m doing it for your own good.”

“Fair enough.” The meds made her eyelids heavy, but there was something she needed to say first. Maybe it took the medicine to force the words out. “Thank you.” The silence was as absolute as the dark. Debi cleared her throat. “I don’t know a single person who could have kept a clear head after a bomb and a shooting, so thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” The pad of his thumb rubbed circles over her hipbone. “I’m the reason you got shot in the first place.”

The loopy feeling of the drugs couldn’t hide the anguish in his tone. “Team Echo is the reason I got shot.”

“We’re one and the same, Team Echo and Team Fear.”

“Not even close.” Rose and the rest of the team were good men in a bad place.

“Trust me, when it comes down to it, we are.”

“You’re wrong.” The
whoosh
of a truck speeding down the highway interrupted the silence. As the truck disappeared into the night, she relaxed against him, the pull of the medicine undeniable. “But I do trust you, Rose.” The only man she’d ever entrusted with her life. He was a good man, and without a doubt he would protect her. She took a deep breath and her back brushed his chest.

The mattress cocooned her side, and Rose enveloped the rest. The rubbing continued, oddly hypnotic and soothing, so she let her mind drift into numb oblivion. “A girl could get used to this.” Cocooned and feeling no pain. “Goodnight, Rosie.” As her mind fogged, she heard his faint
goodnight
, and didn’t know if it was real or a dream.

As a soldier, Rose had slept wedged between rocks in the middle of the Afghan mountains, but curled around a soft woman kept sleep at bay. He had meant to offer comfort and a secure place to rest, which she desperately needed. He hadn’t anticipated the way they fit like two mismatched puzzle pieces. Her drying hair tickled his nose. Each breath brought the smell of strawberry shampoo and woman. His head was screwed.

Debi said she trusted him. What the fuck was that? He’d nearly gotten her killed. He never should have let her leave the motel room. The results of his piss-poor judgment could have been catastrophic. And then he’d multiplied his sins by failing to get Echo One locked down after Fowler had taken the shot. Rose couldn’t think of a single mission where he’d so royally fucked up and failed to do his job.

And she trusted him. She’d wedged her sweet ass against him, tucked her toes between his legs, and drifted to sleep. He was wrapped around her, his head wrapped up in her sassy attitude that outshone her silky black hair. The pert lift of her nose was more saucy than cute, and her soft lips were most often lifted in sarcasm, her go-to response to maintain emotional distance. She was too damned smart for him. Too good. He rolled onto his back, careful to keep his body solidly against her so she couldn’t roll over and hurt her healing shoulder. The soft snuffle of her breath was the lullaby that sang him to sleep.

The
snick
of the exterior door to the adjacent room brought Rose fully awake. Light shifted through the curtains. Dawn, so he’d gotten a few hours of rack time. He jumped out of bed at the same time someone tapped lightly against the door three times. “Briefing in three minutes. My room,” Ryder whispered through the door.

Rose heard it and opened the door. “I don’t want to leave the patient unprotected.”

Ryder peered over Rose’s shoulder into the dark room beyond. “I’ll be quick, but your ass better be there.” He moved down the hall and tapped on Craft and Fowler’s door, relaying the same message in low tones not to be confused with soft. Rose dressed in the dark, careful not to wake Debi. In three minutes, they were all crowded around a crap TV set. Lauren’s features were stark as she sat at the end of the bed staring at the screen.

A news show broadcast pictures of both Ryder and Lauren, wanted for questioning in regards to an explosion in an El Paso townhouse. The townhouse had been theirs until some slimeball had stolen it from Lauren in Ryder’s absence and used it as a meth house until Ryder returned and put that shit to rest. Unfortunately, they hadn’t done the job cleanly. There were bodies in the rubble—four men from Teach Echo and a couple drug dealers—that they’d covered with an explosion. “It was only a matter of time,” he told Ryder.

“Yeah.” Ryder brushed his good hand over Lauren’s hair. “I wish I could have kept you out of this, baby.”

She reached up, grabbed his hand, and held it between both of hers. “We’re together. That’s the important thing.”

Rose turned to see their photos still plastered on the right half of the screen. “You think this is the police or Team Echo?”

“Either way, we’re fucked.” Ryder stared at the ceiling like it held the secrets of the universe. “We better hope the desk jockey that checked us into the motel last night is too busy watching porn to see the news, but we need to move. This time, Lauren and I stay out of sight. Even then, we need a long-term plan. We can’t keep changing motels. Running doesn’t work. We’re not getting anything done.”

“Where exactly do you have in mind?” Frustration made Rose’s tone harsh. “Your place is in ashes and crawling with cops. My place is an eighteen-hour drive away.” And no way did he want to bring this shit to his mother’s door. “Craft, you got a hidey hole close by?”

“There’s a safe house in El Paso, not far from base in the warehouse district. It’s where I keep my equipment, but it’d be a helluva tight fit, no kitchen, and it’s a risk. Echo might have found it already. Fowler?”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Fowler kicked a boot into the exterior door, which rattled against the frame. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re asking.”

“Brother, we haven’t asked a damn thing, but I think you have a place in mind. One that has you ready to crawl out of your skin.”

Fowler ran his hands through his hair until it stood on end. “You don’t know what it’s like. I’m trying to keep those I care about out of this.”

Rose thought about Debi sleeping in the other room. About his sisters. About Lauren sitting on the bed with wide eyes staring at the photo of herself on the screen. “I get it. We can find another way without bringing more innocents into this.”

“No. Shit, this is what we built it for.” He circled a tiny patch of carpet before meeting Rose’s gaze. “I have a place, but we follow a strict protocol. Every vehicle gets scrubbed for bugs and trackers, as does every man or woman before we even get close. No cell phones. No GPS. Nothing electronic.”

“Brother, I’m bringing my computers.”

“I have equipment,” Fowler insisted.

“Nothing like this. This is next-level shit. If we need to hack into government files to figure out this clusterfuck—and we all know that’s where this is headed—we need equipment.”

“Not until—”

“Yeah, we’ll clear your screening first. I’ll head back to El Paso and meet you guys—”

“No.” The thought of Craft going solo made Rose’s skin crawl. Last man who took off on his own ended up dead. “Not alone.”

“Lauren and I can’t risk going back to El Paso. Not with the cops and Echo on the hunt. Fowler has to take us to the safe house, so we split into two teams.” Ryder’s solemn eyes filled with responsibility.

“Looks like you’re on babysitting duty.” Rose relaxed for the first time that morning. A mission without Debi sounded like cake. He’d gotten too wrapped up in caring for her. His head was jacked, something time and distance would cure. “You can hang with the women while I go with Craft to get his supplies.”

“Make a list of everything we need,” Craft said. “As long as we’re making a run, we need to get everything we can so we’re not in the open again.”

Rose moved to grab a notebook, but Lauren beat him to it and started writing. “Groceries,” she said. “First priority.”

“Guns, ammo, counter-surveillance, comms.” Ryder pointed to the top of the list. “That’s first priority.”

“I’ve got—” A knock on the door stopped Craft’s sentence. He pulled out his weapon and moved to the door.

“It’s me.” Debi’s strained voice sounded through the door.

Craft motioned her in and resumed his list. “I’ve got surveillance, counter-surveillance, and comms.”

Rose lifted his eyebrows. “Because?”