Tied Up in Knots (7 page)

“I’m good,” Stacy replied before squeezing my bicep tight. “Zahra, this is Miro, Ian’s guy.”

Zahra’s whole face lit up. “Oh, it’s so good to finally meet you,” she said warmly, like she meant every word, walking around Stacy to give me a hug. It was nice. She wasn’t one of those hover huggers where you barely felt it. Instead, she grabbed and squeezed. I was a fan already.

When she pulled back, she was beaming at me. “It’s so great to put a face to the name. I’m Danny O’Reilly’s wife.”

“Ian hasn’t introduced him to any of the guys, so he has no idea who our hubbies are,” Stacy explained.

“Ah, sounds like them,” Zahra said, and then she noticed the two women behind us. “Hi there, can I help you?”

“Oh” came a gasp, and I finally had a reason to turn when Stacy did as well. “I’m sorry for staring. I’m Paul’s wife, Chloe Jermaine.”

Zahra’s scowl was instant. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean,” Zahra began, her voice going cold, “why are you here?”

“To pick up Paul.”

“And why would Paul be here?” Zahra clipped the words, and the change from how sweet she’d been with me, how warm, to frigid ice queen, was odd.

“Because he’s a member of the team, of course.”

“Did your husband tell you to pick him up here?”

“No, but I checked his e-mail, and the time and date were in there,” she told Zahra, who made a tsking noise.

“That’s probably Danny’s bad. He didn’t take you off the list, and I bet you didn’t get put on it, did you, Miro?”

“No,” I answered, even though she didn’t turn and look at me, too focused on Chloe and her friend.

“Well, I’ll make sure he fixes that,” Zahra promised as she pointed at Chloe. “And I’ll make sure he takes you off immediately.”

“I don’t understand what’s going—”

“What’s going on,” Stacy began coolly, “is that your husband, Paul, is no longer a member of this unit. How do you not know that? We all know that.”

And when she said “we all,” she gestured at the ten or so other women now milling close to us.

“I think you’re mistak—”

“Listen,” Zahra said acidly, “if your husband told you he was going on a mission, he lied, so you best sort that out when you find him. But I can assure you that he will
not
be coming though that security point with the rest of our boys.”

“I… he—”

Zahra advanced on Chloe. “As you know, my husband commands this unit, and he told me he transferred yours out after the last time he nearly got him and the others killed. Not only did Ian Doyle have to save
my
husband in a firefight that
your
husband caused, Danny was hurt enough that Ian had to carry him out,” she said, then taking a deep breath. “So don’t tell me that he’s still a part of this team, because the hell he is!”

As certain as I was that none of that should have been shared, I was just as sure that Zahra O’Reilly was overwrought. Her husband had confided to her that because of the actions of one man, he was nearly killed, and because of the actions of another, he was still alive. All of that information was there, in her head, in her heart, running around, and seeing the wife of the guy responsible for her husband’s brush with death tipped her over the edge.

She broke down then, the tears simmering right there below the surface.

Stacy was quick; I was quicker. Before she reached her, I had Zahra in my arms, wrapped up and held tight.

She cried into my chest as Stacy rubbed her back, and then Stacy turned to Chloe.

“It’s not your fault. She knows it, I know it. No one’s blaming you, but you’re here, and that’s reminding us all that our husbands and fathers and sons and boyfriends could be coming home in body bags if it weren’t for the quick action of certain members of the team when your husband’s actions put them all in jeopardy.”

Chloe stood there, not sure what to do, but her friend, the one who was after my man, grabbed her arm and pulled her away from us.

“I’m so sorry, Miro, I cried all over you,” Zahra lamented.

“Any time,” I assured her.

“Oh, he’s a keeper,” Stacy said, putting an arm around Zahra’s shoulders. “And look, there they are.”

The first guy came out, wearing his Army combat uniform—ACUs—and hefting a huge duffel, but he was still able to drop it and easily catch the woman who flew up to him and vaulted into his waiting arms. She hit him hard, but he absorbed the impact and wrapped his arms around her.

All the women there were greeting men who, like Ian, left for two weeks and were gone four months more.

They all came through then, all in the same color fatigues, all with caps on, all with duffels. Zahra’s husband was big, and when he took off his hat to greet his wife, I saw a lot of red-orange hair before she wrapped her arms around his neck and delivered a scorching kiss that he returned until neither of them could possibly breathe.

Stacy ran and jumped, too, and her husband took hold of her thighs to make sure her legs, coiled around his hips, wouldn’t get dislodged. Clearly he didn’t want to be parted from her for even a second.

Even if I hadn’t seen Ian’s face, I would have known it was him just from his swaggering, fluid stride. Before we were friends, I used to wish I could be intimidating just by moving. People never got out of
my
way, but I’d seen people scatter for Ian as they did now, making room for him to get through.

The dogtags with black silencers contrasted sharply on the tan of the T-shirt he was wearing under his open field jacket. His cap was pulled down low, but I still saw the bright blue I was looking for and marveled at the beauty of the man, the innate power, and I felt instant joy in seeing him strong and whole.

It was like walking in the front door after being away, that overwhelming feeling of rightness, of belonging, of peace. He was my home, and I had to grit my teeth with the surge of emotion and the sting behind my eyes.

Ian was my home.

I didn’t wave. I didn’t have to because he saw me and immediately scowled. His reaction caused the reverse in me. I smiled big, huge, relief and happiness, lust and love all swirling together in a tempest of gratitude that I was sure every other wife, girlfriend, partner, and significant other felt as well. I was probably glowing. The closer he got, the madder he looked until he reached me, dropped his duffel, and took my face in his hard, callused hands.

“What the hell happened to you?” he growled.

One of his eyes had blood in it. I saw purple-and-yellow bruises from fingers that had been around his throat, fresher bruises along the right side of his jaw and he had a splint on the pinky and ring fingers of his left hand. Not his shooting hand, so it would not impact his ability to do his job, or be with me on said job. Because any more time spent away from him, for any reason, would be too much.

“I could ask the same question,” I teased, so happy to see him I could actually feel my skin heat. I wanted his hands all over me as fast as they could be.

“I’m fine,” he said, stepping closer, bumping against me, scrutinizing the bruises.

“Yeah? You’re fine?”

“I—”

I dropped my voice to a whisper even though no one was sparing us even a glance and the closest couple was several feet away. “Good enough to fuck me into the mattress at home?”

I saw my words wash over him. His pupils dilated, he parted his lips and caught his breath. Taken all together, it was a thoroughly satisfying reaction.

“Can you?” I asked, closing my eyes, bumping my forehead gently against his, inhaling his scent and slipping my hands around his hips. “Ian?”

We stood there, silent, breathing each other’s air, and his sigh, like he could finally relax, made me smile.

“You have no idea how much thinking about you I’ve done,” he confessed, swallowing hard. “I dreamed about holding you down.”

The jolt of arousal slammed through me.

“I just—I need you so bad it feels like I’ve got ants crawling around under my skin.”

It was good to hear I was not alone in my desire. Normally I did the fucking, but sometimes I wanted to be on the bottom, and at the moment, I was ready to be, excited to be. All I could imagine was his weight on me and being under him, begging.

“You miss me?” My words came out rushed and aching.

“More than you could possibly imagine,” he rumbled, nuzzling a kiss against the side of my neck.

Opening my eyes, I looked at his good one and his hurt one. “Then let’s go home.”

“Yes,” he said before he slipped a hand around the back of my head, tangled his fingers in my hair, and brought me in for a kiss.

I had no idea he’d do that in front of people, in front of men he fought with, their wives, and any strangers who might pass by. I was amazed for a moment before I forgot everything else and kissed him back, wrapping my arms around his waist and bringing our bodies flush together.

Already it was the best homecoming ever.

IAN INTRODUCED
me to all the members of his unit from the guy in charge on down. I shook all their hands, and it seemed to me they were all genuinely pleased to meet me. I could have been wrong, it could have been an elaborate act, but it was doubtful, as tired and wrung out as they all looked. Obviously, whatever they’d all been through had been an ordeal.

Thinking about how long they’d been gone was not a good idea, because instead of being happy Ian was home, I started thinking about how long he’d been gone, and that only led to resentment. So it wasn’t a surprise when the question popped out, even inadvertently, and neither was Ian’s standard reply.

“I dunno when I’ll have to go back,” he said, looking out the window of my Toyota Tacoma at the rain-washed streets. What started out as a drizzle was now looking like the fifth day of Noah’s journey. “They could call us back up tomorrow, you know that.”

I concentrated on the road, even though the drive was easy. The Lincoln Expressway was not going underwater anytime soon.

“So you’re gonna be pissed now?” he snapped after a few minutes of silence.

“No,” I assured him, trying to keep my voice calm and steady, without any bite. “I shouldn’t have asked. I just—like you here, is all.”

“You don’t think I wanna be home?”

I cleared my throat. “I do and I don’t want to fight with you. That was not my intention.”

“Then what’d you bring it up for?”

“It just came out, I’m sorry.”

He was quiet, I was quiet, so we could both hear the tires on the wet pavement and the rain on the roof of the car.

“You don’t get it because you’ve never served.”

“I know,” I acceded quickly, careful not to get tripped up there.

“And I can’t tell you where I was or what I did.”

I knew that too. The few times I’d asked, all he said was, “We were in the woods.” Sometimes I’d see things on the news about a firefight in some village halfway around the world and wonder if Ian was there. It had become—much like the marriage issue—a question of what Ian would do. What could he do and still be him.

We’d answered the question of us getting married with an absolute, rock solid… someday. It was on the table for sure, but the when was the issue. Yes, he loved me; yes, he wanted to be married—or could see it now instead of not at all—but there was still no definitive plan. What loomed even bigger lately was the military service.

As an Army reservist officer, Ian served at the pleasure of the president, which meant anytime they needed him, he went. I was proud of him for his service as a Green Beret, but I also felt like he’d done enough, given enough of his time, and watching it erode his mind and body got more and more painful to witness.

His dreams made him cry out in his sleep, the injuries he came home with were a horror, and the fact that he had as of late started sleeping with his spare gun, his SIG Sauer P228, under the bed was cause for concern. We didn’t say PTSD because Ian said he knew guys who had it “for real” and a few nightmares were not that big a deal. But I knew better. It was eating him up, things he did, things he saw, and at some point he was going to have to deal with all that, just as I had to deal with being kidnapped by a psychopath a year ago. The difference was that my horror was over except for the fallout, and Ian’s was a constant in his life.

“So,” I said, clearing my throat, “what time is the funeral tomorrow?”

“Eleven.”

“I’m really sorry about your friend.”

“We weren’t friends,” he corrected me, finally turning from the window. “But he was in my old unit, so I gotta go.”

“Of course.”

“Is this gonna be a thing?”

“What?”

“Me going?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

I had to think. “Not—it’s both, right?”

“Explain.”

I shrugged. “It’s your service, and I get that it’s what you feel you need to do, but I think, why are you still doing this? When will it be enough?”

He exhaled sharply. “You don’t understand.”

“Because I’ve never been in the military, I know. You say that all the time. But seriously, why do you have to go? Why does it have to be you?”

“What if something happens to my unit because I’m not there?”

“You’re saying you’re the only person who can do your job?”

“I’m saying I do my job really well, and there aren’t a lot of guys with my training or my experience, so yeah, I’m the most qualified.”

“So there’s nobody else with your skill set.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, of the guys out there, I’m one of the best.”

“Which I don’t doubt in the least, but this is something you choose to do.”

“Yeah.”

“So I’m asking, when will it be enough? When will you stop?”

He was silent a moment. “I’ll stop when they don’t need me anymore.”

“Which is never,” I mumbled. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I have my answer.”

“Which means what?”

“It means I know what I’m in for then.”

We were silent until I pulled up on our street in Lincoln Park and slid in behind a sleek little silver Saab.