Out of Time

by Monica McCarty

  “I’m not. This is me being evolved.” He looked down at her upturned face and the air seemed to squeeze right out of his lungs. He let the emotion rise up inside him rather than push it back down the way he used to. But, shit, it still scared him. She held his heart in her palm, and it made him feel vulnerable in a way he never had before. “I thought I was doing a good job.”

  She laughed, and her eyes crinkled at the edges the way they used to a long long time ago. “You are. I just didn’t know what to look for. Next time you have the look of someone with Icy Hot in your jock, I’ll know what it means.”

  He grimaced at the thought. That had happened to him once when he was the FNG (fucking new guy on the team) and the memory still made him wince with remembered pain.

  “Next time?”

  He knew he sounded too hopeful, but he couldn’t hold it back.

  She nodded. “I was coming to tell you that you better come back with just one bullet hole in you because that’s all I can deal with right now.” She looked up at him, the emotion he’d never thought to see again shimmering in her eyes. “I was so scared, Colt. I thought I’d lost you again.”

  Colt pulled her in tight, closing his eyes and letting his cheek rest on the top of her head. The feeling of overwhelming relief swept over him. She was going to give him another chance. He couldn’t believe it.

  But he probably shouldn’t mention how much the one bullet hole hurt, and that he had no intention of adding to his pain tonight.

  Finally he pushed her back to look in her eyes again. “You’re sure?”

  She nodded and drew away. She walked over to her purse, which was on the desk, and pulled out the same file she’d showed him before. He didn’t stiffen when she handed it to him.

  He gave her a wry look, assuming she wanted him to agree to the adoption. “Your terms, huh?”

  She gave him a funny look and then shook her head. “No. Just look.”

  He opened the file and his heart jackknifed. Pretty much everything inside him flipped upside down and the blood drained out of him. He looked at her, not knowing what to say. The adoption papers that she’d filled out had been torn in half.

  “I love you, Colt,” she said. “And if you love me that’s all I need to be happy. That’s enough. You’re enough.” She smiled. “More than enough.”

  He was floored. It felt like everything inside of him had hit the ground at his feet. He knew how much having a child meant to her, and the fact that she was willing to give it up for him . . . what the hell did you say to that? “Humbled” didn’t cover it by half. “Shame” covered the rest. What kind of selfish asshole made the woman he loved think she had to choose between him and a baby?

  He forgot that he didn’t even want to look at the bed and instead sat down on it. His legs weren’t feeling very strong. “Jesus, Kate. I don’t know what to say. I do love you. But I never meant for you to . . . you don’t need to do this. I know how much a child means to you.”

  She sat down next to him. “But you mean more, and I want you to know that. Although if we are going to give this another shot, you have to agree to see a counselor with me and at least talk about the possibility of adopting in the future. But if it’s really something that you don’t want, I can accept that.”

  Colt had already figured out what he wanted, and at that moment he was certain of it. If she loved him enough to do something like this, he would love her enough to put aside some of his own fears.

  The possibility of how to do that had come to him in the hospital. It might take a little work, but he would see that it happened.

  She mistook his silence for resistance. “Colt? Is that okay?”

  He swept her into his arms and kissed her before there could be any confusion. It was better than okay. It was fucking perfect. Kate had made him the happiest man in the world, and he would do everything in his power to see that she never regretted it.

  It turned out the bed didn’t bother him as much as he thought. He put it to good use for the next fifteen minutes—which was as much time as he had—and couldn’t give a damn who’d slept there before. He was going to be the only one to sleep there from now on.

  Twenty-five

  Scott knew he wouldn’t be able to relax and focus on the mission until he and Natalie came to a little understanding. Mostly about how she wasn’t going to ever scare the shit out of him like that again.

  After the op brief broke up, he found her in the kitchen with Kate. He told his sister that he needed to talk to Natalie in her guest room.

  But talking wasn’t really on the agenda. Never one to mince words—or actions—he made his point in about fifteen minutes, which was about as much time as it took to shut the door, tug down the necessary clothes, lift her up against the door, and sink in deep and hard over and over until they both felt a lot better.

  It was maybe a little primitive, but it was damned effective.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered in his ear when he’d collapsed against her afterward.

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. Scott wasn’t just coming back down to earth and trying to find his breath again; he was also taking a minute to savor the connection and the soft, silky warmth of her body.

  God, how he loved this woman. He intended to spend the rest of his life showing her how much.

  He didn’t know how this was going to all go down, but he knew they were going to be together, and he’d do everything in his power to see that she wasn’t held responsible for any of this.

  Finally he pulled back enough to run his thumb down the curve of her cheek. “No more Lone Ranger, Nat. We’re a team. You and me, okay?”

  “Roger that, sir,” she said with a mock salute. She gave him a wry smile. “I got the message loud and clear.”

  “Good, because I don’t have enough time for a repeat.”

  She laughed and pushed him back so they could redo their clothes, and a few minutes later he was kissing her good-bye.

  It was her turn to look worried. “I don’t like this,” she said.

  “I know.” He gave her a kiss on the head before letting her go. “But I need to do this. I need to finish it.”

  He owed it to the nine of his men who’d been killed to find out the truth and bring who was responsible to justice.

  She understood and nodded. “I love you.”

  “Good. Now hold that thought until I get back.”

  Scott said good-bye to Kate and left. He was the last one in the car. Baylor was driving the big black Navigator that he’d arrived in. Scott assumed it was armored and had been lent by Marino.

  Donovan, who’d taken shotgun, turned and looked over the backseat as he slid in behind Scott. “Feel better, LC? You were looking a little edgy there for a while.”

  Scott usually tried to minimize the swearing, but that rule tended to fall by the wayside with Donovan. “Fuck you, Dynomite.”

  The big blond operator who looked like he rode in on a surfboard just grinned. Apparently they all guessed what he’d been up to, and they were all snickering.

  “Good to know you’re human, Ace,” Baylor said with a snide grin. “We were worried.”

  Scott had given him hell when Baylor had put the book aside a few times when he had met his soon-to-be wife, Annie. He supposed he had a little bit of crow to eat.

  Scott turned to Colt, who was seated next to him, and noticed he was also looking relaxed and smiling. Smiling! His eyes narrowed. “Anything I should know about, Smitty?”

  It was the first time Scott had called him by his call sign in about three years. “Smitty” came from Smith, which came from Smith & Wesson. Colt had once told him that as an infant he’d been abandoned at a police station by his birth mother. The officer who’d found him had taken to calling him Colt because he’d kept reaching for his gun. It had stuck. The director of the orphanage had come up with
Wesson to go with it. Whether it was true or not, Scott didn’t know. It was hard to tell with Colt.

  Colt noticed the use and his smile only deepened. “You’ll be the first to know, little brother.”

  Which Scott guessed pretty much said it all. “She forgave you already?”

  Colt nodded. “Looks like. And before you think about giving me a lecture, I don’t need it. I’m not going to fuck it up again, and I’ll hand you the gun to shoot me if I ever hurt her again.”

  Scott wasn’t convinced. He smiled as he thought of a way to see just whether things had changed. “Did she tell you who she’s working with?”

  To Scott’s surprise, Colt’s mouth fell in a hard white line. “Dan Gordon.”

  Colt knew about that and he hadn’t flown off the handle? Maybe he had changed. Scott had to admit that if the former Delta operator turned CIA agent was working with Natalie, he wouldn’t be looking so calm about it.

  Donovan let out a slow whistle. “Gordog? I’ve heard about him. No one is off-limits with that guy. Supposedly he had to leave Delta because he banged his CO’s wife.”

  Thus the nickname. Gordon dog. Gordog.

  Scott took a little perverse pleasure as Colt’s expression darkened with Donovan throwing oil on the fire that had to be simmering. But to Colt’s credit, he didn’t lose his temper. “Kate is a professional. She can handle herself.”

  “It’s not her I’d worry about,” Donovan said under his breath.

  Colt was clearly not going to let it get to him, but Scott would wager big money that Colt and Dan Gordon would be having a little heart-to-heart the first chance Colt got.

  Scott didn’t blame him. He’d do the same thing.

  They didn’t talk much on the ride to the general’s. The four of them had been on plenty of ops together before Colt had left the team, and they usually would have continued giving each other shit to pass the time and keep the mood light, but this one was different, and they all knew it.

  There was nothing light about it.

  For three months, the surviving members of Team Nine had been waiting to find out who was responsible for the deaths of their platoon brothers, and it was beginning to look like they might get their answer.

  Although it was not the answer that any of them wanted.

  When they arrived at the Murray estate, Scott and Colt were immediately led into the general’s office by his butler. Apparently Kate’s call had done the job, and the general was expecting them.

  Baylor and Donovan were on overwatch and had stayed with the car to ensure that Colt and Scott weren’t surprised if the general attempted to mobilize his security. But other than a man at the gate, and the guy they’d seen roaming the grounds, there didn’t seem to be a surprise army lying in wait.

  Both Scott and Colt had been assessing the situation every step of the way to the office, and nothing appeared out of the ordinary. But if the general was responsible for killing Travis and sending the hit team after Natalie, they knew they had to be prepared for anything.

  Scott had met General Murray once or twice at meetings in the Pentagon, but the four-star general had aged in the past few months. He looked more like seventy than late fifties.

  Scott’s mouth tightened. Guilt? He didn’t know, but if Murray was responsible for setting in motion the ambush that had taken the lives of his teammates, he hoped it ate him alive.

  The general took his seat behind his desk and motioned for Scott and Colt to take the two chairs opposite him. He pulled out a decanter of dark liquid—from the smell, whiskey—and poured a glass. He offered one to them, but they declined. From the ease with which the general downed the first glass, Scott got the feeling it was a frequent occurrence. He had the bloated, flushed look of someone who’d been drinking for a long time.

  “Katherine said you had something about Natalie? She’s in danger?”

  “You tell us,” Colt snapped.

  Scott shot him a look for going off script. This was his part.

  “We know the truth,” Scott said.

  The general’s glassy eyes met his without reaction. “What truth?”

  “We know that you were one of the handful of people who knew about Russia’s secret adoption sleeper program. That you buried it and then decided to turn Mick into a double agent when he was activated. We know that you knew Natalie was a part of it and that you used her, tried to have her killed twice, and threatened to kill her family if she didn’t bring you the computer that proves your guilt. We know that you hired the men who killed Travis Hart in Alaska.” He paused and dropped the bomb. “And we know that you were the traitor who gave Mick the information to pass on to the Russians about my platoon’s recon mission to the gulag.” In spite of his vow to stay cool, Scott’s fury rose as he was talking. He found himself leaning over the desk at the man who sat there like he was telling him the weather. “A mission that saw eight of my men, eight American servicemen, killed by two missiles.”

  Scott didn’t know how he expected the general to react. Maybe with denial? With shame? With violence? It sure as hell wasn’t with anger and defiance. “It is a soldier’s duty to sacrifice. Those men lost their lives for the good of their country. Just like my son. He paid the ultimate price as well. How dare you come in here and accuse me of being a traitor! I gave my son for this country; I would never betray it.”

  Scott was taken aback by the venom. The general’s cool facade had shattered; he looked like a rabid dog, practically frothing at the mouth.

  “TJ’s ‘sacrifice’ wasn’t because he was betrayed by someone on his own side,” Colt said. “You set those guys up. You let a team of American SEALs walk into a fucking ambush. That isn’t sacrifice; that is murder.”

  The general turned his bright-eyed gaze on Colt. “You better than anyone should know that national security isn’t always pretty. What do you tell yourself to let yourself go to sleep every night?” He gave him a look of disgust, as if he shouldn’t have to explain it to someone like Colt. “This is war, and sometimes people have to die for the greater good.” He turned to Scott. “You’re an officer. You know that sometimes officers have to send men in when they know they are going to be killed. Think of all those boys who got out of the first boats at Normandy. They laid down their lives so that others could follow. Do you think those officers didn’t know exactly what was going to happen? That they were sending their men to the slaughter? That is war. That is the reality. Like it or not.”

  “But this isn’t war,” Scott said. “It’s a personal vendetta. And Eisenhower didn’t call the Germans to tell them we were coming.”

  The general flushed angrily. “Don’t fool yourself. There is a war going on right now, acknowledged or not. And Russia is winning it. Ivanov acts with impunity and NATO and its allies are too damned scared to start World War III to do anything about it. He knows it and gets away with murder.”

  He’d gotten away with the general’s son’s murder. Scott knew that’s what this was about. General Murray had always been a vocal opponent of Ivanov and a hawk when it came to war with Russia, but TJ’s plane being shot down must have sent him off the deep end. He’d lost perspective and convinced himself that the ends justified any means. But it was the logic to his argument that made him so scary; even now, he clearly believed he’d done the right thing.

  The general’s hand tightened around his empty glass. His face was red with anger and he looked ready to explode. “If the president had a sack, none of this would have been necessary. But she left me no choice.”

  “So this was about starting a war?” Scott said.

  “It was about forcing the president to get off her fucking ass and retaliate. She might be able to ignore one pilot, but an entire platoon of SEALs? That would have demanded retaliation.”

  “Except that it didn’t,” Colt said. “Because Ivanov outplayed you.” He laughed and the genera
l looked in danger of having a heart attack, his face had turned so red. “The Russian president didn’t want to be forced to declare war as he’d promised if there was another American ‘incursion’ so he sent his missiles but claimed they were a test. Ivanov didn’t take credit for wiping out a platoon of SEALs and our side had no interest in letting it be known that we had a team illegally in Russia, so it was a stalemate.”

  “That’s why you involved Brittany Blake,” Scott said, continuing the narrative. “You went to the press secretly not to get justice for our guys like you said but to get it out in the public so someone would be forced to do something.”

  The general didn’t say anything, but it was clear he was furious. Ivanov had made a fool of him, and they all knew it. “That will change,” Murray said. “When I’m in the White House those boys will have their justice.”

  He was out of his mind. “Those boys you sent to their slaughter?”

  “Those boys who were doing their duty,” the general said defiantly.

  “And what about Travis?” Colt asked. “Was he doing his duty, too?”

  The general’s defiance cracked a little. “That was unfortunate.”

  “No,” Scott said. “That was you trying to cover your tracks when you found out not all of us were killed.” He paused. “And what about Natalie? Was she doing her duty, too? Or was she just another pawn in your game?”

  “Natalie was a spy,” the general said coldly. “I was shocked when I realized the Russians had activated a few of the children from the program after so many years. But it was around the time things with Russia started to heat up, and I assume they were looking at all the angles—and all their assets. I just ensured that she didn’t do any real damage.”

  “You mean you took advantage of the situation,” Scott said. “You used her for your own ends and tried to make her your scapegoat. And then you tried to have her killed to protect yourself when you discovered that she tried to call off the mission.”