Professor Latham always smelled like Dial soap and tobacco.
“Professor?” A young guy poked his dark head through the door. Malik, a Ph.D. student also working with Latham. He and Hayden had spent hours in the lab, working on research, and yet she didn’t know much about him. “Are we going to start this project tonight?”
Malik’s dark gaze found the professor’s before sliding over to Hayden. “Hi.”
His look said so much more. She hadn’t really noticed him as a man before, and she definitely hadn’t noticed the intensity of his attention to her. Despite his English accent, Malik was of Middle Eastern descent, with midnight black hair and golden skin. He looked good. Well dressed. Sweater. Slacks. Slim but not skinny.
The complete opposite of Hoyt Crowe.
Hayden cleared her throat. “Hello. We were just chatting, but I’m done with him. He’s all yours.” Hayden made a move for the door, her steps somehow lighter despite her heavy backpack. It felt good to be admired by a handsome man.
“Malik, I’ve had something come up,” Professor Latham said. “I’m sorry, but I need to cancel our research tonight.”
Hayden and Malik both stared at the professor. He never cancelled.
Ever.
“Everything okay, Professor?” Malik stepped fully into the room, allowing the door to swing shut behind him.
“Yes, of course. Everything is fine. But you know, I feel bad for dumping you like this. Hayden’s planning on going to a party tonight, why don’t you go with her?”
Hayden stiffened. “I’m sure Malik doesn’t want to waste his evening with me.”
Malik’s face flickered with surprise. “A mind reader already?”
“No. Just trying to save you from throwing away your plans on me.” Hayden felt herself blush.
“And why would you think I wouldn’t enjoy the pleasure of your company?” His eyes twinkled a little as he said it.
A groan worked its way up her throat, but Hayden cut it off fast. Instead of letting her ease into the social pool, he was dunking her into it.
The professor pulled her in for a quick hug and whispered in her ear, “You can’t just sample one guy. Besides, Malik has been making googly eyes at you for months.”
“I’ll get you back for this.” Hayden whispered, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t hold on to her aggravation.
He stepped back and gave her a wink that would have put Peter Pan to shame. “Well, I’ll leave you two to make your plans. I’ve got a date.”
“A date?” Hayden said.
“A real date?” Malik echoed.
Professor Latham grabbed his briefcase off the stage. Then, as if he hadn’t just dropped a nuclear news bomb, he headed to the door. “With Professor Rhoden.”
The bomb detonated, sending both Hayden and Malik stumbling back a step.
Malik made a strangled sound. “You mean Kathy Rhoden, the Abnormal Psych professor?”
The professor opened the door and stepped into the hall. Then he stuck his head back in. “I do.”
The door clicked shut on the beginnings of a whistled version of “My Girl.”
Only Professor Rhoden didn’t have blonde curls and enormous blue eyes. Not even close. The feminazi’s short gunmetal gray hair could make steel bend. And then there were the tattoos curling up her arms and the black combat boots that seemed constantly glued to her feet. “He’s got to be joking,” Hayden said.
“I guess I kind of saw it coming. She’s been pursuing Latham for a while now.” Malik tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks, rumpling the bottom of his sweater.
“She’ll pulverize him.”
“Or she’ll be the one woman strong enough to help him move past his wife’s death.”
Malik’s words gave her pause. Had Professor Latham chosen bachelorhood because, like her, he’d never been able to move on?
All of a sudden his earlier comments hit home. The professor had zeroed in on her situation because he had been in the same rut. He’d been stuck on a woman who died two decades ago, just like Hayden was stuck on a man who was dead on the inside.
Both of them needed to find a way to move forward.
“I have to work tonight, but he’s right. I’m planning on going to the Sigma Pi party tonight. I’ll probably be there about ten thirty.”
“I’ll see you there.” Malik’s expression was warm, and his gaze lingered on her.
A wave of uncertainty washed over her. Was she really ready to move on? Could she?
Or did she want to pine for a man who had no interest in moving on for the rest of her life?
Hayden lifted her chin. “I’m looking forward to it.”
4
Hoyt stalked from his Jeep to the large tan metal building that housed Task Force Scorpion’s headquarters. The command center was located in the dead center of their newly acquired property. Hank James, Hayden and Hunter’s adoptive dad, had retired from farming and had acres to spare, so he made the huge donation to TF-S. Although their true headquarters was at Fort Granada about thirty miles away, this outpost allowed them more freedom of movement.
Hoyt couldn’t complain. He fucking hated sleeping in barracks. Half those bastards took a bath about once a week, and after about ten seconds of being locked up with the smell of unwashed armpits, spit cups, and cigarette smoke, he wanted to puke.
Besides, the mere thought of sleeping on the bottom bunk made him feel like he was slipping into a splintered pine coffin.
A hard chill hit him and Hoyt braced a sweaty hand on the heavy white security door. Tight spaces made him nervous. Hell, being inside his own bedroom made him nervous.
Their commander had called the meeting early, which more than likely meant Hoyt’s team mates were back from Afghanistan with new intel on Al Seriq, the terrorist leader of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, ISA, they’d been tracking for years. A mission Hoyt hadn’t been allowed to go on.
He needed a minute to get his shit together. He’d been skating on the thin ice of sanity for the past few months, and if he walked into this room with so much as a twitch, Colonel Grey would slap him with a medical discharge.
Which would mean no more military and no more legalized killing.
Shit. The only thing that would make him feel better was a hot Afghani roof and his sniper rifle hugging his shoulder. After so many months of inactivity, his trigger finger had one hell of an itch. There was something so satisfying about sighting an enemy combatant at long range and taking the fucker out before he could harm US troops. Besides, he had to get the hell out of Mercy. He’d done his best to avoid Hayden since the incident, but this small town seemed to shrink each day. He’d bumped into her twice. Each time her scent had enfolded him in a warm hug and her big Colorado-sky-blue eyes had nearly taken him to his knees.
Not that he’d even spoken to her. No, he’d all but run, acting like a freaking acne-covered pre-teen would near a super model. Hoyt let his head hang and scrubbed a hand down his clean-shaven jaw, his fingers bumping over the cavity of the scar that ran the length of the left side of his face. Shit, next to him, acne looked pretty.
Get it together, asshole. Hayden isn’t yours anymore.
Hoyt checked the urge to slam his fist into the door and straightened. He just had to keep it cool for a few minutes. Download the brief on the mission and then hop on a C-130 to Kandahar. He punched the security code into the small silver pad on the right of the door, took a deep breath, and strode into the command center.
“Jesus Christ.” Ethan Slade, recon specialist and gunnery Sergeant, straightened from the oval-shaped white table at the back of the room. His shaggy black hair was pulled into a low ponytail at his neck and a thick beard covered the bottom half of his face.
Hoyt cracked a twisted smile, knowing that it looked more like a feral distorted grimace. “Don’t like my new haircut?”
Ethan had been on the reconnaissance mission longer than the rest of the team. This was the first time
he’d seen Hoyt since Crowe Mountain. Since the incident.
Ethan eased toward him like he was getting up close to a hungry tiger. “Shit man, they said it was bad, but…” His words trailed off mid-sentence. “How are you handling it?”
Hoyt planted his feet and faced his friend, stuffing down the urge to come back with some smart-ass remark, trying to remember how to keep his shit under control. And not explode on his teammate. Not that he’d learned any communication strategies during his forced stint in the VA psych ward. They’d basically just shoved bottles of pills at him and told him to forget about being sliced and diced. Pretend like a weeks’ worth of torture never happened.
After a month, Hoyt had told his newest intern psychologist to go suck a pistol.
He’d deal with shit in his own way. And there was no damn way it would involve a life spent popping one antidepressant after another. He was done with that.
“None of your business. Why are you back? Did you find Al Seriq?” Hoyt skimmed a hand over his freshly shaved head. He still wasn’t used to the loss of his long blond hair. Blond hair that Hayden used to run her fingers through and exclaim over its silkiness. Every time he’d done the same he’d thought about her, so he’d taken a razor to his hair to amputate the memory. Then he’d made Jared take him to the tattoo parlor to get the two large scorpions inked on his arms. He needed the daily reminder of his reason for living. As sniper, he was crucial to his team.
“Listen man, if you ever need to talk, I’m here, okay?”
Hoyt was across the room in an instant, standing toe to toe with Ethan. “You want me to talk about how my cousins cut me up? Or should we go all the way back to childhood and discuss how my aunt and uncle tried to starve Jared and me to death? No, wait a minute, I’ve got it—you’ve been through the same thing right? Yeah, let’s talk about it. Someone in your family try to kill you too? I’m all ears.”
Ethan took a giant step back, hands up, palms facing out. “Just offering to help.”
Hoyt closed the gap between them again in one menacing step, thinking long and hard about planting his combat boot in his teammate’s face.
“Back off, Hoyt. The man hasn’t seen you yet. You can’t expect him not to react.”
Hoyt glanced over his shoulder to see Jared walking toward him, his expression as locked down as a steel box. Hoyt was sick of that look, sick of his brother trying to hide his concern and failing.
Hoyt jerked his attention back to Ethan, but Jared grabbed his arm and pulled him back. The contact made his skin crawl and he jerked away. He knew what people felt when they touched him. He felt every single scar that crisscrossed his flesh, and even though Jared had been the one to rescue him, Hoyt could barely tolerate close proximity to him. Let alone touching.
He jerked away and turned to face Ethan, his feet planted shoulder width apart, hands down at his sides. “So, are you the reason for the meeting?”
Ethan gave a hesitant nod, wisely choosing not to repeat his offer of help. “Yeah, all those hours of laying on my stomach in the sand finally paid off.”
“About time. We’ve been tracking this asshole one year too many. You get a location? When do we leave?” Hoyt rubbed his hands together. Yes, he’d decided his best hope for rehab resided in the KA-BAR knife in his boot and his new Remington Modular Sniper Rifle. And if Ethan had located Al Seriq, Hoyt was about to do some intensive immersion therapy.
He’d just broken in the sniper rifle on the range. The scope had a range of over two thousand yards. He’d be able to blow Al Seriq’s head off his shoulders from a good 1.2 miles away.
His chest went tight with satisfaction. A buzz crawled through his veins, and he had to resist the urge to tilt his head back and sigh. Killing the terrorist would be better than relieving a never-ending hard-on. It would give him purpose again. A real reason to live.
If he capped off that chapter, maybe he’d actually find it in himself to move on. He could finally stop thinking about Hayden and how her hair felt like cool satin shifting through his fingers. How her skin felt like the softest silk sliding beneath his palms. How her lips were just the right size for his, molding for his kisses…
“I’m afraid we’re not going anywhere,” Ethan said.
“You might not be, but I’m on the next plane to the suck.”
But Ethan shook his head, and just like that, Hoyt got that tight feeling in his chest again, only this time it had nothing to do with the high of death and everything to do with the heat of rage. He would go back overseas even if he had to buy his own ticket and fly with the civilians. He needed this. Needed to get back in the game and get rid of whatever this itch was crawling around inside his body. What better way than to regain control, than to become a warrior again?
And he would bulldoze anybody who dared to stand between him and the endgame.
Hoyt started to take a menacing step forward, ready to prove just how serious he was, but Jared slammed a hand on his bicep and yanked him back. “Let him speak. I’m sure he wants to end this as much as you do.”
Hoyt stumbled back, cursing the fact that his brother now had a solid thirty pounds on him. Another hangover from his incarceration at the VA unit. The food there was shit. Hell, it was the maggots that grew on shit. The result was that he’d lost a good twenty pounds of muscle. Something he was doing his damnedest to rebuild, but his stomach had shrunk and the protein shakes could only go so far. If he could get back in the war zone, in his element, he could rejoin his comrades and be fucking normal.
Or at least big and bad enough to scare normal away. “I’ve got to go.” His voice dipped a little, but he told himself they hadn’t noticed.
“You’re not gonna want to go anywhere when you hear my report.”
“So tell me.” Hoyt ground out, yanking his arm from Jared’s grip.
“He’ll tell you when I’m good and ready for him to speak. Go sit down. The rest of the team is right behind me.” Colonel Mack Grey walked through the door, all business. The man always emanated a subtle aura of pure power. Whether he was in his dress blues or a military-tan pull over and jeans, like he was now, there was no mistaking him for anything but what he was. A natural commander.
And like a good soldier, Hoyt snapped to attention and let his feet carry him to the chair at the far right corner of the table.
Jared took the seat directly to his right and Ethan sat at the direct opposite end of the table, as far from the Crowe brothers as he could get. Hoyt felt a brief moment of regret. He’d never mentally or physically threatened a teammate before. Never felt the urge. But he’d turned into a ticking nuke; he was just waiting for someone to hit the right button before he exploded.
“Take your seats, and I’ll get started.” Grey moved to the front of the table, on the opposite side of the room from the door, and set a small briefcase on the surface. The uncovered fluorescent lights buzzed and cracked overhead, seeming to warn them of bad news to come. The commander crossed his arms and stood still. Not giving away anything more than the deeper than usual lines around the corners of his gray eyes.
Feet shuffled into the room, signaling the arrival of the rest of the team. Merc took the chair on Hoyt’s right. The huge spook was probably the only guy on the team besides his brother who was willing to risk getting anywhere close. Of course his lack of fear could be due to the fact he was the size of a tree trunk on steroids.
Hunter and Ranger James, the first and second team leaders of TF-S, took the next seats down. Hunter had nearly lost his wife because of Al Seriq. Ranger had lost his best friend. Both men wanted revenge as much as Hoyt wanted a purpose.
Riser Mallon and Aaron Speirs, TF-S’s medics, filed in last. Each man carefully acknowledged his teammates, but most of them avoided eye contact with Hoyt.
Every member of TF-S was highly trained in unconventional warfare and special reconnaissance. Each had his own sub-specialty within the group. Sniper, demolitions expert, interrogator, medic. When combined, they were a deadl
y unstoppable force.
“I’ll cut straight to the chase. Our boy Ethan here has been trailing Al Seriq for some time now. He finally caught him two days ago.” Grey unfolded his arms and clicked a remote. A head shot of the most wanted man in the world appeared on screen.
Ethan joined the commander at the front of the table as Grey clicked over to a new picture. Hoyt froze. The men shifted in their seats. Tension crackled in the room. Ethan cleared his throat. “I found him like this. His second-in-command made a surprise coup. He executed Al Seriq in the traditional style and has assumed command of ISA.”
Colonel Grey clicked the remote again. The screen flipped to a new, but almost equally familiar, face—Zafar el Abdul, the former second-in-command. “Zafar, as most of you know, is a little different than the man he toppled. He’s still a religious fanatic, but he’s greedy.” Grey shifted and then clicked again. “And that greedy bastard just struck a deal with a certain infidel to hire mercenary groups. Any of you recognize this guy?”
A black-and-white photo, grainy and obviously taken from a distance, appeared on the screen. The tension in the room exploded. Almost every member of TF-S jumped to their feet.
“What the hell?” Aaron Spears was the first one to speak up.
“I hope you’ve got a plane ready. I’m going to rip that asshole’s head from his shoulders,” Hunter planted his fists on the table and leaned forward. His massive biceps strained the limits of his army-issue T-shirt.
“Is he really alive?” Hoyt was the only one who hadn’t stood, and he leaned back in the chair in stunned disbelief.
“Sit down.” Grey waited for everyone to follow his command before continuing. “Facial recognition software confirms this is indeed Mr. J. Our theory that the ambush in the Indus Valley two years ago was all orchestrated by him is true. He faked his own death and has been in hiding since then.” Mr. J, TF-Scorpion’s original CIA liaison had not only betrayed his team, he’d tried to have them all murdered.
Ranger turned to his brother and gave him a light tap on the shoulder. “So C.W. wasn’t crazy when he told us Mr. J had contacted the MRG.”
Ravaged River: Men of Mercy, Book 6: A Military Romance Series Page 3
