Soldier for Hire

by Kimberly Van Meter

  Rolling away, turning on his side, he tried to focus on what he knew about the McQuarry bombing.

  Thanks to his little blackout—he didn’t know much.

  The operation had been simple: provide security for Senator Ken McQuarry as he did his little rally speech in downtown Tulsa. McQuarry had been a typical white male politician sort—trying to hide his soft and doughy gut in expensive suits, his mouth full of rhetoric—and he hadn’t been running any particularly controversial platforms so the job should’ve been a cakewalk.

  They hadn’t expected someone to rig the amphitheater and blow up the senator.

  Hindsight.

  The bigger question was how did someone put Xander’s fingerprints on the plastic explosive when he sure as hell didn’t rig that bomb?

  Scarlett groaned softly in her sleep. He didn’t dare try to comfort her. Force of habit, they were all light sleepers. He could only imagine the demons she entertained. Maybe his and hers could have a playdate.

  A part of him wanted to know what made her twitch at night, what secrets were locked away in that complex brain, but he would never pry. That was the thing between fellow soldiers, they understood that sometimes talking about things didn’t make it better—it just created more shit to bubble to the surface and no one had time for that.

  Still, he wanted to smooth the faint lines from her forehead and chase away her nightmares.

  Too bad she’d never let him.

  Tomorrow he had a meeting with the political journalist from the Tulsa World daily. They were supposed to meet at an abandoned schoolhouse. He figured the best way to mitigate the risk was to meet someplace with the least amount of prying eyeballs around.

  In the quiet dark, it was hard to run from the fear that he might not find the evidence he needed to exonerate himself. The fear that he might actually end up behind bars for a crime he hadn’t committed didn’t help his insomnia.

  He’d made a lot of mistakes in his life—done things he was ashamed of—but never had he ever considered harming a civilian.

  More than just Ken McQuarry died that day.

  He had their names etched on his brain.

  Rosie Grogan.

  Butch Halford.

  Ronnie Pitt.

  Layla Osmundsen.

  He wasn’t the one who’d planted the bomb but he was complicit in their deaths because he hadn’t been doing his job. Remembering their names was his penance. Maybe if he’d been sober, he would’ve seen the bombs, could’ve gotten everyone to safety... Hell, he might’ve been able to defuse the bombs before they’d gone off.

  Again with the hindsight.

  He needed help kicking his habit, but there wasn’t time for that now. To think that a doc had prescribed the drugs for his back pain all legal-like and now he was a friggin’ junkie was a dark irony that didn’t escape him.

  Most days he functioned fine. But there were other days when he was falling down stupid, out of his head, lost in the black hole of addiction.

  Get your head on straight. There was no time for his issues. Not right now.

  He forced his eyes closed. Morning would come soon enough and if he didn’t catch some shut-eye, he’d need toothpicks to hold up his lids.

  His last thought as he drifted to sleep was the hope that for the first time in his life, luck was on his side.

  Chapter 7

  “A three-hour drive?” Scarlett exclaimed when Xander revealed their travel plans for the day. “Why?”

  “Because the reporter wasn’t willing to risk being seen with me and the location is abandoned so it’s unlikely anyone will see us coming or going.”

  “Sounds like a trap,” she grumbled, tucking her gun into her hip holster and pulling her hair up into a tight ponytail. “And you trust this reporter?”

  “I don’t trust anyone,” Xander answered, holstering his own weapon. “But I need answers and this woman seems to be willing to give them to me, so I’m going where she tells me to.”

  “But why is this reporter willing to give you information?”

  “Because I’m paying her a lot of money.”

  Scarlett was impressed. “Seriously? I thought that only happened in the movies.”

  “Turns out greed is a very real motivator and reporters don’t make jack shit these days so...it’s almost a public service. I’m helping to keep journalism alive.”

  “That’s a stretch,” she quipped with a dry smile. “But it works out in your favor that you managed to find a reporter whose integrity was for sale.”

  “You’d be surprised how easy those are to find.” Xander winked.

  Xander’s reason made a certain level of sense, but a three-hour drive to some abandoned place seemed like a bad idea. They were between a rock and a hard place given it would’ve been personally safer to meet in a public place, but the very thing that made it safe also made it risky.

  Scarlett smothered the urge to growl with frustration. She hated feeling vulnerable and went out of her way to ensure that she had the best handle on any given situation, but that wasn’t going to happen with this circumstance. Better get used to it.

  “Fine. I need coffee,” Scarlett grumbled, sliding into her jacket, thumbing her nose at the sludge offered in the room. “Whatever that is...is not coffee and I’m going to need the real deal if we’re going on a road trip to BFE.”

  Xander crooked a grin that sent tiny sparks straight to her empty belly. “Think of it this way. You get to see parts of Oklahoma you’ve never seen before.”

  “Pardon me while I rein in my excitement.”

  He laughed. The sound coaxed a grudging smile on her part. That was the thing about Xander; he had this way about him that made people forget why they were pissed at him.

  It was that skill that had probably kept him alive all this time.

  They climbed into the car, stopped by a roadside stop-and-rob and then hit the road. Three hours in a car with Xander sounded like psychological torture but she’d endured worse.

  But when he cranked the country music, she had to reevaluate that assumption.

  After twenty minutes of country crooning, she’d had enough and purposefully clicked off the radio. “Look, we should use this time to go over the case,” she said, ready to do something productive.

  “I have a better idea, let’s just enjoy the ride,” Xander said.

  Scarlett exhaled with mild annoyance. “This isn’t a Sunday outing. I don’t know why I hear the ticking clock more loudly than you, but it’s all I can hear. We need to go over the case until we know it by heart.”

  “What makes you think I don’t already?” he said quietly.

  Scarlett fell silent, digesting his retort. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve probably gone over the facts in this case until you’re cross-eyed but I can’t just sit in the car, listening to tunes like we’re out for a picnic more than your ass is on the line.”

  “I didn’t ask you to come with me,” he reminded Scarlett. He wasn’t being a dick about it, just stating facts. “Maybe I need a break to just coast for a minute.”

  She opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. She couldn’t imagine what he’d been going through since the moment he found out someone was gunning for him.

  Being former military, it wasn’t hard to slip into that mode where no one outside of your unit was beyond suspicion, but that level of paranoia took a toll on the psyche.

  Keeping your head on a swivel at all times did something to you as a human being, which was why most of Red Wolf was comprised of people who found civilian life difficult.

  Drawing a deep breath, Scarlett rubbed her palms down her jeans and said, “Okay, we’ll do this your way, for now, on one condition—” she cut Xander a sharp look “—no more country music. It’s classic rock or silence.”

  He chuckled. “You drive a hard b
argain.”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Xander punched in a rock station and grinned as Scarlett relaxed and nodded in approval as classic rock filled the car.

  An hour went by and Scarlett turned the music down.

  Xander sent a playful glance her way. “Ready to give country another shot?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Okay, well, silence will drive me batty.”

  Scarlett suddenly realized it bothered her that she knew what Xander sounded like when he climaxed but she didn’t know much more about him aside from what she’d read in his personnel file.

  And he knew more about her than she ever shared with anyone and it wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t like she went out of her way to know her team on a personal level, which is why sleeping with one of her team members had been a bad idea, but what was done was done.

  And she was a little old-fashioned about some things.

  “I need to know more about you, Xander.”

  “More? Like what? You’ve read my file. Not much more to tell.”

  “Bullshit. You and I both know that’s not an accurate portrait of a person. If I were to go off your psych eval, I would say you’re a narcissistic asshole but I know that’s not true.”

  “I’m telling you, that doc had it in for me,” Xander said. “Crack one off-color joke and it’s ‘no soup for you.’”

  Scarlett smothered a laugh at his Seinfeld joke. “Okay, so tell me about yourself.”

  “Would you like to know what’s on my dating profile?” he teased.

  Scarlett blushed and shook her head. “God, no,” she answered quickly, but then a part of her wanted to ask how in the hell he managed to date in their particular line of work. Each time she attempted a dating profile, she ended up sounding like the most generic person in the world because she couldn’t afford to put real details out there on the web. “I mean, tell me how you ended up going the military route.”

  Xander frowned, clearly not his favorite bedtime story. She half expected him to decline and change the subject or worse, return the radio to country but he surprised her with an answer.

  “Kinda like your story. Dad was an abusive dick. Didn’t have the means to go to college, not that I would’ve been able to handle more school, but the army was my ticket out of hell. I took it without looking back.”

  “Is your dad still alive?”

  “No. He died when I was overseas. Felt weird to get the message. I mean, I’d prayed for the man’s death more times than I could count when I was growing up but when it actually happened, I was numb. Kinda disappointing, really. That was the biggest reveal. I thought I’d feel more. Relief, maybe? Or joy, even? But nope, I felt nothing. My LT gave me the message and ten minutes later I was back on the job.”

  Scarlett understood the numbness Xander had felt. She’d felt the same when her own father had died.

  She’d long come to the conclusion that people who were damaged had two choices: wither and die, or deal with it.

  Her way of dealing with the abuse at her father’s hands was to walk away and never mention the man’s name ever again.

  “Funny how the mind works,” she murmured. “I didn’t feel anything either when my old man kicked it.”

  Xander nodded, understanding. “I think I felt nothing because he’d become nothing to me. He was no longer my father. The military became my family. My brothers and sisters in arms... They were the ones who had my back. Unlike that asshole who’d done nothing but beat me black-and-blue until the day I was too big and he realized I’d tear him up if he laid another hand on me.”

  Scarlett would like to say that their stories were the exception but there were plenty of military people with similar backstories. If military life wasn’t ingrained in a person from childhood, signing a blank check to the government took some balls or some other driving force, and sometimes that driving force was desperation.

  She would’ve done anything to escape her father. It just so happened, a recruiter caught her ear senior year at career day and she’d been in a frame of mind to listen.

  It’d been the best damn decision she could’ve made. Otherwise, she might’ve ended up a statistic.

  “I hope he’s roasting in hell,” Scarlett said with a shrug. “My only regret was not being there to watch the light fade from his eyes.” Xander nodded without judgment. It felt good to admit her feelings, even if they were savage. “If there’s any justice, he’s in hell getting his pecker lopped off over and over and over in an endless loop of pain and humiliation.”

  She waited for the internal cringe at sharing more of her true feelings but nothing happened. If anything, she felt relieved.

  Scarlett never talked about the sexual abuse by her father, but its lingering effects had ruined plenty of potential relationships. At the end of the day, it’d seemed better to remain single.

  Less questions, less drama.

  But it sure got lonely and when loneliness struck, it was difficult to rein in those feelings of need.

  Especially when you end up slugging back tequila shots with a man you’ve been smothering an attraction for since the day you first crossed paths.

  “I want you to know that I’m sorry for the way I acted the morning after that night,” she said, venturing with hesitation but still needing to say something. “I was really rude to you and I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve got no reason to apologize. We’re both adults. My feelings weren’t hurt.”

  She glanced at Xander. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, I mean, I get it. You’re my boss. We can’t be hooking up like regular people. You needed an itch scratched and I was there.”

  Well, it wasn’t quite that cut-and-dried. It wasn’t as if she would’ve gone home with CJ or Zak or even Laird, but it was probably in everyone’s best interests if she just agreed. “I’m relieved you understand.”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Now, I won’t pretend to understand why we can’t do it again—you’re not my boss right now—but I’m respecting your position and I’m not going to push it.”

  She wasn’t one to be wishy-washy but a part of her was wavering in her resolve. Xander made a certain amount of sense. Right now, they were in suspended animation. She wasn’t his boss and he wasn’t her team member.

  Technically, she wasn’t supposed to be with him so what was to stop them from taking advantage of the situation to their benefit? It was only temporary and Lord knew they could both use a little stress relief, as Xander had pointed out, but there was a tiny part of her that worried her feelings went a little deeper than physical need. She craved Xander’s touch on a level that went beyond simple lust. Hell, the idea of just lying together, arm in arm, was like warm sunshine on her face.

  Which was exactly why they needed to avoid each other in that capacity.

  Except... She shook her head, confused at the direction of her own thoughts. It wasn’t like her to go backwards on a decision but the memory of Xander was too strong to fight.

  Maybe if she stopped fighting, she could spend that energy elsewhere...like doubling down on finding who the hell had framed Xander in the first place.

  Yeah, that made sense. The band that’d felt wrapped around her chest snapped and she drew a deep breath. As much as she hated to admit it, Xander was right. Seemed kind of hypocritical to say she wouldn’t sleep with Xander again because she was his boss when she was willing to break multiple laws to prove he was innocent.

  So...sleeping with Xander was back on the table.

  But she wasn’t ready to say it out loud. Not yet. The last thing she wanted to see right now was Xander’s gleeful smirk because Lord only knew he’d probably anticipated her about-face.

  Instead, she changed the subject. “What do you know about this reporter?”

  * * *
>
  In all the time he’d been working with Scarlett, there were still things about her that were a mystery. The reveal about her childhood made him sad, but he wasn’t surprised. Life had a tendency to harden people and Scarlett was made of granite.

  Still, it bothered him to know that as a child she’d suffered at the hands of someone who was supposed to love her, just like he had. They were like two lost kindred souls, battered and bruised yet determined not to give in. Maybe that was the thing about her that he admired the most.

  If he were being honest, he’d had a thing for his TL since day one. But he’d known messing around with a superior was against protocol, so he’d pushed those feelings way down and his method had been working until that night.

  His back twinged, reminding him that he needed to take another dose but he didn’t dare take one in front of Scarlett. If she saw him popping a pill she would ask questions he wasn’t ready to answer. Knuckling down, he ignored the dull roar of pain and focused on answering her question.

  “I don’t know anything about this reporter. All I know is that she’s been writing for the Tulsa World in the political section for at least three years and she seems smart. She also agreed to take the money in exchange for information, so there is that.”

  Scarlett frowned. “Does she know who you are? Does she know you’re a federal fugitive?”

  “I didn’t actually mention that part.”

  “If she’s as smart as you think she is, she will have already figured that out.”

  “Please. This ain’t my first rodeo. I gave her a false name. I told her I was looking into the death of McQuarry, hinting that I knew about a bigger conspiracy and of course, she ate it up. I don’t know of any reporter who doesn’t salivate at the mere hint of a conspiracy theory.”

  “And she bought that?”

  “Of course, I also told her I was doing research for a tell-all book and she immediately started talking about the book she wanted to write, too. I swear, are all reporters frustrated novelists?”