Beau (In the Company of Snipers Book 18)

by Irish Winters

  A tiny smirk graced the corner of Alex’s mouth before one shoulder lifted. “I’m not worried about catching Montego as much as keeping you alive.”

  “You’re what? Worried about me? A Ranger?” Oh, give me a break. “You honestly expect me to believe that BS?” Beau couldn’t sit still one more second. He jumped to his feet, instantly knocking McKenna aside and jolting his aching hand in the process.

  Of course, brain-piercing pain shot up his arm to his neck and shuddered into his skull like a lightning bolt with its never-ending power to hurt him. And he couldn’t swear! Where the bloody hell were the Cartwrights? It was way past time for a pill. Or a hypo. Make it a double!

  Alex crossed his arms over his chest, still as smug and in control as ever.

  What Beau wouldn’t give to knock the arrogance off his face.

  “I need you here protecting Doctor Fitzgerald more than I need you out hunting Montego,” he said calmly. “Maverick and China have a ranch to run. They can’t handle that and protective custody, too, so your duty station is here until further notice. I’ve got other agents just as capable as you of tracking Montego. Cassidy Dancer for one. She provided indisputable evidence of how psychotic Montego and her brother were, remember? Besides, I’m sure Doc Fitz would rather you stay.”

  Ambushed by that insight, Beau aimed an accusing glare at McKenna. She had the grace to blush, which instantly denied his suspicion that she was in on this ambush. That helped.

  A knock at the front door interrupted before Beau could tell Alex where to stuff his concern. Without waiting for admission, Gabe stomped inside the house with his pretty wife protectively under his arm. “Hey, Boss, I miss anything?” he asked as he secured the heavy wooden door behind him and pocketed the key he’d used.

  Did all TEAM agents have copies of each other’s house keys? Everyone but me? Figures.

  “Yeah. Hurry. Double-time, Gabe,” Maverick said, then turned to Shelby before Beau could get a word out. “Beau needs something before he kills one of us.”

  What the fuck was that supposed to mean? “I never killed those guys,” Beau blurted, his good hand instantly fisted, his weight shifted, and ready to fight. “I never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it!” Certainly not—her.

  Easing back into the couch, Maverick had the nerve to grin. “Relax, I’m just kidding. Can’t you take a joke?”

  “No!” rumbled out of Beau before he could restrain himself. He’d never kid about—that.

  Out of breath and feeling trapped, he ran his tongue over his dry lips. He shot a covert glance at Alex. Did he and Maverick know all about his childhood? Was that what this was about? It’d sure explain things. They were psych-profiling him. Figure out the parents. Explain the child. Bullshit!

  “I’m so sorry,” Shelby said as she rushed straightaway to Beau’s side, her honey-blonde hair glistening in the light. “But we had to run over to Kelsey’s to get the meds from Libby first. She’s the physician. I’m just a home health care nurse, and we got to talking, and… I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He didn’t want to like her, but the woman was a good foot shorter, and she had the loveliest eyes. Only today they were more like frightened violets behind her square, horn-rimmed glasses, and she was out of breath. Her fingers trembled when they landed on his wrist.

  Gabe’s eyes had narrowed the moment his wife stepped up to Beau. Yeah. Something was definitely going on between these two. Beau’s worry heightened when Shelby’s fingertips skimmed up his forearm.

  “You’re shaking?” he told her quietly, in case she didn’t want anyone, like her big tough husband, to know. Was Gabe bullying her?

  “I am,” she replied evenly, blinking like she might break down and cry.

  Whoa. Just whoa! He stepped back from her in case he was the problem. In case she was afraid of him. What the fuck had Gabe been telling her behind his back?

  Stabbing her glasses higher on her nose, she grabbed onto Beau’s wrist, unintentionally tugging him back to her. And holy Jesus! A lightning bolt shot up his arm at her less than gentle touch. He couldn’t help the belligerent “Fuck!” that hissed out of him.

  That brought Gabe across the room in two floor-eating strides and a threatening, “Goddammit, Jennings!”

  She lifted her palm to his face. “No. I’m okay, honey. I’m fine, really. I need to do this. And I’m sure sorry, Beau. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Gabe froze in his tracks, but her voice had quavered too much for her to be fine, and his fists were still clenched like he needed to hit someone.

  “You’re not okay,” Beau murmured, keeping a sharp eye on her volatile husband, daring Gabe to take one more step. “But if you don’t want to treat a guy like me—”

  “God, will you shut up?” Gabe growled. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Everything is not about you.”

  Then what’s wrong with Shelby?

  At last she lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry if I’ve ever given you that impression. But really, it’s not you.” She swallowed hard, her head bobbing. “It’s me. Honest. I almost lost a patient one time, and I’m sorry if I offended you, but giving shots is still hard for me to do. I’m afraid I’ll hurt you, too.”

  Jesus, as hard as she was shaking, she just might. “I’m not that easy to kill,” Beau told her kindly, anything to calm her down. “Would you rather I give myself the hypo? I can do that, you know.”

  Shelby shook her head and bit her bottom lip. “No, Agent Jennings. I mean, Beau. Please,” she said as she ran a fingertip under one side of her glasses. “Let me do this. It’s my job. Just like everyone else, I have to face my fears, and the only way to do that is to run through them, right?”

  He got it then. As tiny as she was, she meant to be as strong as that Devil Dog husband of hers. That explained Gabe’s protective stance, too. He was worried. For her—not what Beau might do to her. Only Gabe couldn’t protect her from everything, could he? How well Beau knew.

  Her candor took the wind out of his sails, though. “I’d have said ‘run them through’,” he teased as he let Shelby do her thing. She did real good, and the second she stowed the empty hypo back into its plastic case, he told her so. “Thank you, ma’am. That didn’t even sting.”

  Those pretty violets beamed up at him. “Really? You’re not just saying that to be nice?”

  “No, ma’am, I didn’t feel a thing.” Beau glanced at Gabe. “Thanks for running her over to get my meds. I could’ve done without them, but—”

  “Like hell,” Alex growled. “He’s been a pain in the ass since he woke up. Give him a double.”

  Damned if Maverick didn’t add, “Not that he wasn’t already an ass.”

  Even China grunted like she agreed.

  Did everyone need to pile on?

  “I won’t be late again, Alex,” Shelby promised.

  “You’re fine,” Alex assured her. “Take a seat.”

  Beau turned back to Alex, the painkiller taking almost immediate effect. Thank you, Jesus.

  “Now, where were we?” he asked as he settled alongside McKenna for more ‘enlightenment’ from a man who knew virtually nothing about him.

  Leaning back in his chair, Alex stretched his long legs out in front of him. “This team has your back, Beau. You don’t have to like it; you just have to know it. And I’ve got—”

  Brrrrrrrring!

  “Stewart,” Alex answered his cell. “Is that so? Good. I knew you could do it. Hold on, Mother, I’m putting you on speaker.” With that, he set his phone face-up on the side table. “I want you all to hear what she has to say.”

  “Hey, Beau? Are you there?”

  He nodded though Mother couldn’t see him, then said, “Yeah. I’m here,” because, well, she couldn’t see him. Maybe Alex was right. That lifesaving hypo had already shifted Beau’s temper into the manageable zone. So what if everyone knew what his mother and father were? They didn�
�t matter.

  “I’ve been researching my archives, looking over the satellite images from a few years back in Nangarhar Province. You know the place and time I mean, right?”

  Beau’s mouth went dry. Shit. Alex knew.

  “Listen, do you remember the name of that interpreter you had along with you that day? I sure hope so, because…”

  No. Just no.

  Beau lost track of the world while Mother droned on. Alex and McKenna were out there somewhere. Maybe it was the painkiller. Maybe it was the memories. It was hard to know with the images from that day flooding his head. His men dying. The fuckin’ meat grinder they’d been dropped into. The lying Afghan bastards he’d once called friends.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” was all he could say without swearing up a storm.

  Because talking about it before had only gotten him arrested on suspicion of murdering his guys. Like he honestly would’ve done something so heinous? Murder the five Rangers who’d had his back? Yeah, he’d argued and tussled with them plenty. They were assholes just like him.

  But fighting was what hard men did. Those guys weren’t his drinking buddies, but they’d been every bit the professional he was. They got the hard jobs done, and they would’ve done the same that day. They would’ve brought that bastard Abdul Salim in to answer for his crimes.

  If they’d lived.

  All at once Beau couldn’t breathe. Instinctively his gaze flitted from Maverick at his right over to where Gabe had settled with Shelby on the couch beside China. Then across the room to Alex. Jesus, did they all know? Did they suspect him of committing coldblooded murder? Was this one of those damned interventions that people sprang on guys before MPs burst through the door and dragged him away?

  Jesus H. Christ, I need to go. I never should’ve agreed to stay. I don’t belong here, either.

  “Beau,” McKenna murmured, her fingers tapping his kneecap to get his attention. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  She said it so quietly that he turned and fastened his gaze on the only safe place in the room. There was no doubt in her soft, warm eyes. Only the emerald glow of that indefinable something he craved like his mother had once craved her drugs.

  Just as quickly, suspicion lifted its ugly head. Would McKenna kick him out, too? Would she turn away like everyone else, now that she knew what he’d been accused of? What others who hadn’t been there that day but claimed to know everything, had accused him of? Is she in on this, too?

  It was so hard to know who to trust.

  The purest green eyes continued to stare back at him. She winked. One corner of her mouth twitched. Her shoulders lifted like she knew what he was thinking. “I’m right here, big guy,” she said simply, her fingers so small and warm on his knee.

  “Beau? Beau? Are you still on the line?” Mother called out, tapping at her headpiece with those extra-long fingernails of hers like she did in the office. “Come on, talk to me. I don’t have all day.”

  “Here,” he replied woodenly, his gaze still fixed on his one true north. McKenna’s slender hand had moved from his kneecap to his left forearm. Not holding on tightly. Not holding him back. Just grounding him. Lending emotional support like a lightning rod in a shit storm he couldn’t seem to escape.

  Mother rattled on. “Anyway, I think I’ve got enough evidence to support what you told the MPs and the Judge Advocate. I invented a device that sharpens satellite imagery until even the tiniest details…” Blah, blah, blah.

  “Wait a minute,” Beau growled. “Say again?”

  “What part? Did you hear anything I just told you?”

  Honestly, no. Not after his panic attack set in. But like everything else in his life, Beau would never admit it. “Sorry. I had some interference on my end. Please repeat.”

  Mother tsked. “Which part? All of it?”

  “Just where you wanted my interpreter’s name until the part where you said you’ve got evidence. Evidence on what?”

  “Okay, sure,” she grumbled, “but listen up. I don’t like to repeat myself. I have hard evidence that your interpreter sold you and your team out. He worked for Abdul Salim, least he did until that A-10 Warthog took Salim and most of his men out. But that interpreter is the reason you were attacked as soon as your chopper left the scene. You want me to text a portion of the video proof I downloaded? It’s no trouble. I’ve already highlighted precisely what the Judge Advocate needs to focus on. Even circled the face of the guy that shot you, and the man who shot Captain Trenton with your pistol. Did you hear that? I have concrete proof you didn’t shoot Trenton. It’s no trouble to send it. I do that with Alex all the time.”

  Beau honestly had no idea what to say. No one had ever—ever—gone out of their way to help Bass Jennings’ worthless guttersnipe of a son. Not one day in Beau’s entire life had things come easy. If anything, every minute of his life had been one nightmare after another since he’d watched the light fade from his little sister’s beautiful blue eyes. Since his despicable excuse of a father had damned near beaten him to death for—get this—living.

  Now Alex knew everything.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  By the time Beau dared look his employer in the eye, Mother had stopped talking. Alex’s phone wasn’t on the side table anymore. The room had gone scary silent, like those few deadly seconds before a bullet pierces your heart. The one a guy never heard. The round with his name on it. Somehow, Dorn’s sweaty face lifted up from the murk of that desperate day. His last words were, “Tell my wife I died loving her.”

  Like a faithful dog who’d needed one more kick in the ass, Beau had delivered that message at Dorn’s funeral. After the honor guard had handed the flag to his widow, and most of the crowd had dispersed, Beau had cautiously approached Dorn’s wife and told her everything that happened, but especially Dorn’s last words. His wife had cried, and Beau had fought not to cry with her. She’d told him to keep in touch. He’d lied and said he would.

  The years of meaningless abuse ambushed him now. Lifting his clenched fist to his lips, Beau tried to clear his dry throat. Didn’t work. Didn’t matter. There was no way to rationalize what he now knew to be nothing more than a lifetime of child neglect and abuse.

  Alex was right. Beau’s need to fight the world and everyone in it began the day his mom died. He should hate her for what she’d done but try telling that to his heart. Her name was Fidget, a stupid name for a nervous drug addict whore who’d obsessively twitched until she’d scored. But she was still his mom, and she’d given just as bizarre a name to her only daughter, AJ. Ha. Named after a candy bar. Almond Joy.

  And I loved them.

  And they both left.

  Just like McKenna will.

  Shit. Beau sucked in one last breath before he’d have to face the truth and let her go. Damned if she didn’t squeeze his wrist just enough to get his attention again. Turning his head, he looked down into her trusting face. There was so much he wanted to say to her. He lifted one finger to the tangle spiraling over her forehead and tucked it behind her ear, never more certain than now that all this ugly information was news to her. That she wasn’t complicit in yet another ambush. With that gentle confidence in him, it was time to leave before he ruined everything for her, too.

  “Did you hear anything Mother just said?” Alex asked.

  Beau nodded, the fight finally stomped out of him as he turned from McKenna to face another hard man. “Yeah, I heard. What do you want me to say?”

  “Just thought you’d be a little more excited. Relieved maybe.”

  Holding onto the last of his shredded pride, Beau shrugged. “I lied on my job app. So sue me.”

  Alex cocked his head, his brows narrowed as if he didn’t understand.

  “Will you knock it off?” Maverick snapped, gesturing at Alex. “What the boss is trying to tell you, dumbass, is he can clear you of the military charges you’re facing.
Mother’s spent all morning tracking down solid proof to support what you told the Army Judge Advocate.”

  “Yeah, Beau. Stop with the perpetual pity party,” Gabe added, though he said it with less venom. “You’re not the only one who’s had a shitty life. Look at what Izza’s been through.”

  See that right there, that whole ‘them versus us’ mentality? That was the real problem with this sanctimonious TEAM. Just because Izza Maher was obviously Hispanic did not make her family. So was the brutal gang that had ruled Beau’s neighborhood back then. They were all Latino. A violent combination of mean teenage guys and meaner girls, they’d made sure he ran for his life that first bloody day when he could barely stand on his feet. They were the ones who’d hunted him like a rat through the tunnels and byways of Las Vegas, not the police. Bass Jennings had paid that gang to kill his son. They just never ran fast enough.

  “What’s Izza to you, Beau?” Alex asked, his elbow on the armrest now, and his index finger over one brow. Tapping at his forehead like he was trying to figure things out. “Do you even know why you can’t be civil to her?”

  “She means nothing,” Beau said. And neither do you. But that wasn’t precisely true, and Beau knew it. Alex had done him a favor. He might deserve hearing the truth. Beau cleared his throat as best he could. A bottle of water sure would’ve been nice.

  Damned if Shelby didn’t jump to her feet, run into the kitchen, and return with just that. She handed it over like it was no big deal, when it was so damned kind. Maverick and Gabe wouldn’t have thought to do that. Hell, Beau wouldn’t have, either. He didn’t know what made women the way they were, but most of them were so much more perceptive than guys.

  He blinked at the unwanted moisture clouding his vision. When it wouldn’t leave, he uncapped the bottle and took a long, cool swallow, struggling to get his inner Ranger back in control. But as he lowered his head to meet Alex’s stare, it struck him hard. Beau Jennings had never—not once in his whole fucked up life—been in control.