Marine for Hire (Front and Center)

by Tawna Fenske

  She bit her lip. “Actually, I think I’m going to go find my phone. I want to call Mac.”

  “What for?”

  She looked at him, trying to decide if he looked guilty or merely curious. “I just have some questions to ask,” she said. “I think I’ll turn in after that. I didn’t sleep much last night.”

  They locked eyes, and she felt her cheeks warm up. Was he recalling what they’d been doing instead of sleeping in his bed early that morning?

  “Okay.” Sam nodded. “I’ll finish up here. Thanks for the great day at the beach.”

  She smiled in spite of her grim mood, allowing him to pull her into an embrace. When his lips found hers, she dissolved into him, almost forgetting her questions, almost forgetting her suspicions, almost forgetting herself—

  Almost.

  “Good night, Sam,” she said as she drew back.

  She felt his gaze follow her down the hall and it took every ounce of strength she had not to sprint back to the kitchen and throw herself into his arms. She closed the bedroom door behind her and picked the phone up off her dresser.

  No new messages, which was a relief.

  She crawled into bed with all her clothes on, feeling chilled. She gripped the phone and hesitated, finger poised over the speed-dial button for Mac. Maybe she wasn’t ready to confront Sam, but she could get some information from her brother. Of course, she had no idea where he was at the moment, which was nothing new. It could be the middle of the night in some war-torn country with Mac conducting whatever secret government business kept him occupied.

  The hell with it. If Mac was crouched on a battlefield or boardroom somewhere, he just wouldn’t answer the damn phone.

  He picked up on the second ring, startling Sheri with the quick bark of his voice. “Sheri, what’s up? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

  She burrowed into her pillow, soothed by her brother’s low rumble, even if he was being an idiot. “Nice to talk to you, too, dumbass. I’m fine. For crying out loud, can’t I call my brother without there being some crisis?”

  “How’s Sam?” Mac asked, ignoring her question. “Treating you and the boys okay?”

  “Sure, Sam’s great. Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Oh?” Mac’s tone was guarded, though that didn’t mean much. Mac’s tone was always guarded.

  “What can you tell me about Sam?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’m getting the sense that there’s more to Sam than just a happy-go-lucky manny who used to be your football teammate.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Mac said, drawing the words out slowly. “He’s also an excellent harmonica player.”

  “Goddammit, Mac. That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  “I have no idea what you meant, Sheri. Sam is a top-notch manny who’s great with kids and extremely competent with domestic tasks. I’d trust him with my life.”

  “Oh yeah?” She licked her lips, not sure what she wanted to ask next. “Have you ever had to do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Trust Sam with your life?”

  “He drove me to the hospital once when I got food poisoning. Then there was the time he helped pull me out of a bar fight in college.”

  If Mac had been standing beside her, she would have slugged him in the shoulder. Instead, she tried another tack. “Sam sure seems to have a lot of military knowledge for a civilian.”

  “He majored in political science. Had to take all kinds of classes in military history, plus his aunt was an officer in the Coast Guard.”

  “Is this aunt married to the uncle who’s the Marine?”

  “Uh—no. Different branch of the family. Look, Sheri. Sam’s a great guy. He’s one of my oldest buddies, and a stand-up character.”

  Sheri balled her hands into fists. This was getting her nowhere. “If Sam’s so great, why did you tell him not to touch me?”

  “Sam touched you?!”

  Sheri pulled the phone from her ear, certain Mac’s yelling could be heard on the other end of the house. She put it back in a hurry, eager to do damage control. “That’s not what I said. I just wanted to know if you issued some sort of stupid order like that.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You tell me.”

  They were both silent a moment, a sibling standoff that was all too familiar to both of them. At last, Mac cleared his throat. “When does Jonathan leave?”

  “Less than a week.”

  “You’ve heard from him?”

  Sheri couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement. That was true of nearly every phrase Mac uttered, and it drove her as crazy now as it had when Mac still pulled her pigtails.

  “Yes, I’ve heard from him.”

  “And you’re going to get better about making sure the door is locked?”

  “Dammit!” she snapped, unsure whether to be irritated with Sam or with Mac. She settled for both. “You have been talking to Sam.”

  “Of course I’ve been talking to Sam. He’s my employee, Sheri, and I have a right to know if my sister is in danger.”

  “I’m not in danger,” she muttered.

  “Well I’m going to make sure Sam keeps it that way. Is he doing an adequate job looking after you and the boys?”

  “Yes,” she admitted a bit grudgingly. “More than adequate.”

  “Are you letting him help you, or are you being difficult?”

  She rolled her eyes, not sure how the conversation had gone from her interrogating Mac to Mac interrogating her. It wasn’t the first time.

  “I’m letting him help me,” Sheri said. “Most of the time, anyway. You know, it wouldn’t be wise for me to become too reliant on a man—any man—at this point in my life.”

  “Sheri, there is zero risk of you ever becoming too reliant on anyone because you’re too stubborn.”

  Mac’s voice had risen so it was practically a yell, and she felt herself scrunch down a little under the covers.

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re the biggest control freak on the planet?” she asked.

  “Why do you think I’m not married?”

  Sheri smiled, loving her idiot brother in spite of the fact that he was—well, an idiot. “Good night, Mac.”

  “Good night, Sheri. Keep your hands off Sam. And let him take care of you.”

  She hung up the phone and stared at it a moment. “I can’t do both, you big jerk.”

  …

  Sam stayed up late that night. He’d hoped Sheri might emerge from her room and tell him about her phone call, but she’d stayed behind closed doors all night. He wished he knew what she’d asked Mac. What Mac had told her in return.

  All he knew is that there was a definite chill in the air, and that he was sleeping alone tonight.

  Or not sleeping, as the case may be.

  You’ve had too many close calls lately, he chided himself. You’re on the brink of screwing this whole thing up royally. Of her finding out you’re a lying jerk, just like her ex.

  He honestly wasn’t sure which close call bothered him the most. His freak-out over the beets? Limpdick pegging him as a military man? Two different guys recognizing him at PMRF today?

  Or the fact that he’d very nearly lunged across the table over dinner, so desperate to have Sheri again that he was willing to give up his job, his honor—not to mention his home-cooked dinner—just to have her warm and lush and laughing beneath him on the dining room table?

  He’d settle for a bed. Hell, he’d settle for anyplace at all she named, if he could just touch her again.

  Focus, he ordered himself as he looked down at the Colt .45 in his lap. Her intrusion that morning hadn’t given him a chance to finish cleaning it—not that he was complaining—but he needed to get the job done. He’d even pushed the door shut to afford himself some privacy, though he’d cracked it again when he realized he couldn’t see the front door.

  He’d been planning to s
leep in the living room to keep watch there, but he’d already checked the lock three dozen times. There’d been no signs of Jonathan, and the lock seemed to be holding.

  He wondered if he could get his hands on Sheri’s phone again. Maybe he could figure out how to block messages from Jonathan’s number.

  That’s a short-term solution, idiot. What do you plan to do long-term? You can’t go on like this forever.

  He couldn’t think about that now.

  He fired up his laptop as he ran an oilcloth over his weapon, determined to do a bit of multitasking for the evening. An alert popped up on screen from Mac.

  I’m e-mailing you a copy of a report and the location of some personnel files you need to read right now.

  Sam frowned at the screen, wondering for the hundredth time how Mac always had access to classified information.

  He reached into his desk and pulled out his CAC card reader, along with his military ID. He shoved the ID into the slot and opened his e-mail. The message from Mac sent his heart pounding in his ears.

  Here’s the preliminary report on what happened in Kabul. For further details, follow this link.

  Sam opened the file and stared at the document. At the top was a date he’d remember for the rest of his life. The day in Kabul when his whole life changed forever. A chill ran up Sam’s spine when he clicked through to the dot-mil page Mac had indicated. His hands felt numb as he stroked the gun with an oilcloth.

  He didn’t need to read the report to remember. It was painted on the inside of his brain.

  His commanding officer had ordered him to a warehouse in Kabul. It was early morning, but the village had already been bustling with vendors hawking bread and mothers hustling young children into shops and schools and banks. The smell of raw sewage drifted in through an open window, and Sam squinted against the blinding sunlight.

  He had only sparse details on his target. White shirt. Slight limp. Gray backpack. Known terrorist who had to be neutralized at once.

  That was Sam’s job. As one of the top snipers in the Marines, he’d been called on to perform it countless times. His commanding officer had given the time and place, but no further detail, save one:

  Shoot to kill.

  Sam had every intention of doing it. He’d done it before, expected he’d be doing it again and again through more tours of duty.

  Then he saw the face in his scope. The target.

  A boy?

  He couldn’t have been more than ten years old, eleven at the most. Sam watched, hesitating, finger on the trigger. The boy looked up, not at Sam, but at a flock of birds fluttering overhead. The kid smiled—the gap-toothed smile of a boy on Christmas morning, and Sam felt something inside him twist.

  “Take the shot!” his commanding officer shouted through his earpiece.

  Sam watched as the boy took something out of his pocket—candy?—and smiled again.

  “Take the shot!”

  No!

  Sweat beaded on Sam’s forehead, and his finger twitched on the trigger. He hesitated—for seconds? Minutes? He wasn’t sure.

  Whatever it was, it was too long.

  The blast had come instantly, a blinding shower of hot glass and screaming voices and acrid smoke.

  Suicide bomber.

  The words had pulsed through Sam’s brain as he covered his head with his arms, blocking pieces of flying glass and the screams of the victims. He still heard the screams now, still smelled the smoke and felt the sharp sting of hot stone shards piercing his skin.

  Sam shook his head to clear the memory, forcing himself to study the report Mac had sent. Then he followed the trail to the personnel files, the words coming at him in a fuzzy jumble.

  Timing device.

  Casualties unavoidable.

  Officer Samuel R. Kercher found not at fault.

  Sam blinked, trying to understand what he was reading. Beside him on the desk, his phone buzzed. He glanced down at it. Mac.

  “Hello?”

  “Did you get it?” Mac demanded.

  “Get what?”

  “The report. I can see you’ve logged in, Sam—don’t play dumb.”

  Sam swallowed, his eyes still glued to the screen. “I’m looking at it now.”

  “Then you know.” Mac’s voice was low and oddly soothing. Sam wondered where the hell he was and how he had access to all this information.

  “Know what?” Sam asked. “I don’t understand.”

  Mac cleared his throat. “You know what the rest of us have been trying to tell you for weeks, Sam. It wasn’t your goddamn fault.”

  “How—”

  “The bomber was wired with a timer set to blow at a precise moment. There wasn’t a damn thing you could have done differently to change that.”

  “But if I’d put a bullet between his eyes—”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. Whether you’d obeyed the order to fire, or hesitated in taking the shot or put down your weapon and played the fiddle while juggling oranges with your feet—none of it would have changed the outcome one bit.”

  Sam sat silent, digesting the information. So it wasn’t his fault. All these weeks of assuming the worst, of questioning his abilities as a soldier and a protector and a man—

  “I’m not a total fuckup then.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. I could have told you that. You think I’d have you looking out for my sister if I didn’t believe you were the best man for the job?”

  “No,” Sam said slowly, gripping the phone tighter. “Still, I failed to follow orders.”

  “There are worse things in the world than that, Sam.”

  The words hung there between them for a moment, and he wondered just how much Mac really knew. Maybe everything. Did it matter?

  Sam stayed silent a moment, digesting the information. He wasn’t responsible for all those innocent deaths. He hadn’t screwed up—not completely, anyway. He was a good protector—a good soldier.

  A good man.

  “Look, Mac, I’ve gotta go.”

  “Call me after you’ve read everything,” Mac said. “Tomorrow if you need time to process it.”

  “I’ll do that. And Mac? One more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What you just said about there being worse things than not following orders?” Sam took a steadying breath. “I’m in love with your sister. I don’t give a shit how overprotective you are or if you gut me with your field knife. I love her and I want to protect her and be with her and fight for her if I have to.”

  It was Mac’s turn to be silent. It could be a bad sign, but Sam hoped it wasn’t.

  “You there, Mac?”

  He grunted. “We’ll talk about this when I get to town.”

  “When’s that?”

  “I’ll let you know when I arrive.”

  Mac disconnected the call, and Sam resisted the urge to smile. He’d done it. He’d come clean with Mac.

  But more importantly, he’d cleared his name. Not just his name, but his conscience. All this time with Sheri and the boys, he’d been proving to himself that he had it in him to serve and protect. To succeed where he’d failed before, albeit in a slightly different setting.

  Maybe it was time to forgive himself.

  A wave of ridiculous relief washed over him. He looked down at the gun in his lap, polished to perfection. He glanced back at the computer screen, reading the words more slowly this time.

  The incident that occurred at 0800 hours in the warehouse beside Al-Aaimmani Mosque in Kabul has been determined to be—

  “Sam?”

  Her voice jolted him from his reverie. He turned to see her fingers curled around the door he’d left ajar, to see her pushing it open in slow motion.

  Fuck.

  He looked down at the pistol in his lap, at his military ID in the CAC reader, at the tremble in his own hands, and knew it was all over.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sam’s heart skidded to a halt in his chest. He didn’t breathe. He d
idn’t blink. He didn’t say a word as Sheri stared him down with the stoniest expression he’d ever seen in his life.

  She folded her arms over her chest and looked him dead in the eye. “Were you planning to tell me?”

  He didn’t reply, knowing anything he could possibly say would be useless.

  Tell you what? would earn him a well-deserved punch in the jaw. Yes or no wasn’t the right answer either, so he stayed silent, hating Mac, hating Jonathan, mostly hating himself.

  He looked down at the gun in his lap, then at the laptop screen. He hadn’t been fast enough to hide either one.

  Nice fucking sniper reflexes, asshole.

  “Sheri, I can explain,” he began, even though he couldn’t. Not really.

  And she knew it. She gave a hollow little laugh and shook her head. “Oh really? I’d love to hear you explain it. Tell me all about how a big, strapping Marine came to be my goddamn manny.”

  Sam swallowed. “Did Jonathan tell you?”

  She flinched, and he instantly regretted his words.

  “My ex-husband knew? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Her voice was nearly a shriek now, and Sam said a grateful prayer the boys were heavy sleepers. Sheri stepped into the room and began pacing like a woman on the brink of throwing something. Sam didn’t blame her.

  “Jonathan guessed,” Sam said, wondering if that made a difference. “And Mac knew, of course. And Grant, and—”

  “You have to be joking,” she snapped. “Everyone under the sun knew but me? My goddamn ex-husband? My brothers? That guy at the beach today, for fuck’s sake. That’s what that was all about, right? You went there to spy on me, and he recognized you. Is that how it happened?”

  He had to admire her powers of deduction. He stayed silent, wishing like hell there was something he could say to make this go away. The sick feeling in his gut told him that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.

  Her eyes dropped to the CAC reader, then to the gun in his lap. She gave a furious little laugh.

  “Nice gun. I’d say that’s a Marine-issued Colt .45 Close Quarter Battle Pistol with a custom trigger, manual safety, and glowing Tritium sights for low-light conditions.”

  “How did you—?”

  “I’m a firearm geek, Sam. I was a military wife, for chrissakes. And a military sister, and a military daughter. I’ve spent my whole goddamn life eating, sleeping, breathing, and drinking military trivia. I probably know more about the goddamn Marines than you do.”