“My Glauca. They were no happy that I lose such a knife on a training assignment.”
“Why did you give it to me?”
“Now is the time to ask this question?”
“Now.” Lauren didn’t know why. She was running on instinct here.
“I give it to protect you when I cannot be there to protect you myself.”
“I wear it every day.”
“Oh, ma chérie.” His sigh was eloquent and spoke of dreams that she’d never shared. At least not with him.
She didn’t even need to glance at Emily before deciding the next step.
“Georges. There is a traitor inside GIGN. Whoever it is has been feeding information to a terrorist cell. Somehow they left a trail that points to you. We have an undocumented Delta Force snatch-and-grab team closing in on you, but they’ve been caught in a trap between GIGN and the terrorist cell. I think the mole is at work, killing you and framing them.”
Georges’ curse was particularly vile. “Norman. Only he is in position that he can do this. Do you have contact with your team?”
Lauren glanced at Emily, who nodded.
“Yes.”
“Okay, we must run this like that day at La Koubba.”
“I’ll tell them. We have,” she glanced at Emily, who flashed up eight fingers, “eight minutes.”
Georges didn’t even waste time on a curse before breaking contact.
“La Koubba?” Emily asked as she contacted the team.
“In between…” two nights of particularly passionate lovemaking at a beachside villa. “Just…in between…we took our dogs for a run in the Parc du Belvédère in the heart of Tunis City. To make it more interesting for the dogs, I created a counterattack scenario for something just like this. La Koubba is a seventeenth-century pavilion atop the highest bluff and was the focal point of the scenario, but the logic is the same even if the terrain will be different.”
Emily studied her for a long moment, then glanced up at Michael. “You were right about her.”
Then, without explaining herself, Emily hit some command. Suddenly, all the information that had been displayed on her screens was now on the station in front of Lauren.
No time to hesitate. She hit the radio link to the Delta ground team and began guiding them out of the trap they were in.
“There is an alleyway sixty-five meters down the Avenue de Gribeauval. Send two shooters twenty meters down it between the gray armory and red-roofed offices of Satory Commandant du Camp. Next—”
“You can’t get out of it, you know.”
“I don’t want to get out of being in love with Lauren.” Patrick knew at least that much.
“Good,” Mark echoed Nathan. Mark continued, “I like her. Be fun to have her stick around.”
“That’s another part of the problem,” Patrick tipped back his beer bottle, but it was dry. He wanted to chuck it at something—hard. Through sheer willpower, he managed to set it gently on the counter. Still not trusting himself, he nudged it away until it was at the limit of his fingertips.
“Why is it a problem to have her around?”
“Because she’s going back to New York and I’m going to have to follow her.”
“Woman will do that to you,” Mark agreed. “Thought I was in the military for life, probably ’til they shot me out of the sky. Emily made me think about family and having something else to live for. Led me here of all strange places,” he circled his bottle in the air to indicate the ranch.
“I don’t want to leave!”
“Well, then, I guess it sucks to be you,” Nathan agreed.
Patrick saw what Nathan had meant about not being helpful, but didn’t think complaining would help much.
“Why does it suck to be Patrick?” Mack and Mac came into the room.
Just like his son, Mac hit the fridge first and fetched a beer for himself and Mack.
“We’ve got to do something about your names,” Nathan protested. “Mac, Mack, and Mark. Someone named Jack or Mick shows up and we’ll never get anything done.”
“How about Liam?” Dad walked in and accepted a beer.
“Or a dog,” Patrick was thinking about Lauren with Rip curled up at her feet. She had faced and conquered her fears until she was completely at ease with him trotting out of the room at her side.
“A what?” His dad looked at him strangely. Patrick felt as if he was having a different conversation from everyone else around him.
“Dogs have names too. I knew an Australian sheep dog named Jack once.” What fears did he need to conquer to be with Lauren? No. Erase that question. What did he need to conquer to make sure that Lauren wanted to be with him?
“Mack, Mac, Mark, and Jack,” Mack agreed. “I need to get a dog when I get home and name him Jack. Just like the old Monty Python routine.”
“What kind of python?” Mark asked.
Nathan just shrugged when Mark looked his way.
The two Mac(k)s and Dad groaned in unison. “These boys are just too young, I’m telling you. Nobody is bringing them up right.”
“One of them’s your son, Mac,” Dad pointed out.
“He’s the worst of the lot.”
Mark raised his beer in a toast of acknowledgement. That’s when Patrick noticed that for all that Mark had been drinking, the liquid wasn’t even drained to the top of the label. It was like a break in the film continuity as a glass was refilled over and over again between takes. To Mark, the beer was a prop.
Patrick wished he’d done the same, rather than drinking the whole bottle so fast—especially on an empty stomach. It churned there like a lead weight.
“Bruce,” Patrick offered, though his mind was only half on what he was saying. “Everyone in the philosophy department is named Bruce. Then a new guy joins. Everyone decides that having his name be Michael is too confusing, so they rename him Bruce as well.”
Michael!
Somehow Michael was the key to Lauren.
He pushed off the counter. He had to find Michael. Maybe the austere colonel would unbend enough to tell him what he was doing wrong.
“Hey!” Nathan called after him.
“What?”
“Don’t go too far. I’m getting married in half an hour.”
“Uh-huh.” Patrick headed for the door.
“What’s up with him?”
If anyone made any guesses, he didn’t hear it.
“Ah, chérie. You were magnifique. As you always are.”
“Thanks, Georges. You were amazing as well.” His face was bloody on the display, but it wasn’t his blood, nor any of the Deltas’.
At that moment, Lauren saw Patrick enter the far end of the barn.
“Ah, I know that look. You have finally found him.”
“Found who?” But Lauren suspected that she already knew.
“The one who owns your heart.”
Patrick wore a suit that looked truly spectacular on him, except that it was soaking wet. She could see, framed in the door behind him, the downpour pounding out of the darkened sky.
“Chérie?”
“Right. Sorry, Georges. And…” She remembered his many kindnesses. How to thank him?
Patrick shook himself like a wet dog, then looked right at her, as if there wasn’t a one-way window between them.
She pulled the Glauca out of her leg sheath and held it up to the console’s camera eye. “You’ll always be my protector, Georges.”
“This time, it is you who has protected me. And I am guessing that task now belongs to another man.”
Patrick walked the length of the barn, right past Minotaur’s outstretched nose without noticing, until he reached Chelsea’s office across the main aisle from the Tac Room’s stairs. There he leaned back against the wall and folded his arms to wait.
A very Gallic sigh sounded from the comm gear.
“Sorry, Georges,” Lauren turned back to the screen.
“I will miss our talks, chérie.”
Lauren
did her best not to blush. Georges knew exactly what to do with that melting French phone-voice of his.
“Me, too, Georges. Bye.” And she switched off before she could embarrass herself further.
She turned to go to Patrick, but she only made it half out of her chair before dropping back into it. Michael was still leaning back against the door with his arms folded. Still no sign of movement. Time to deal with Colonel Gibson first.
“Why did you come here, Michael? What drew you out of Delta to come to Henderson’s Ranch?”
He shrugged. “Not important. You gave me the answer to my problem already.”
Lauren blinked, then looked over at Emily, who only shrugged.
“You do know that you’re not getting out of here undamaged unless you explain that, don’t you?”
Emily nodded her agreement.
Michael sighed, then shrugged. “Colonel James Andhauer has been promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. He is replacing someone who you’ll be very glad to know was told to retire quietly to avoid a court martial.”
“The one-star idiot who—”
Michael’s nod stopped her tirade.
“Loss of grade?” Lauren would really like to see him punished.
“No, but no standard pre-retirement bump in grade to increase his pension either. He’s simply out of the system where he can’t hurt anyone else.”
Lauren decided that it would have to be enough. And since it was more than she’d expected, it would be.
“Wait a minute. The commander of Delta Force was promoted?”
Michael nodded.
Emily put it together the same moment she did. Michael was the Number One Delta operator in the entire unit. He’d turned down promotions a half dozen times to stay in the field.
“They offered you command of Delta,” Emily whispered a moment before Lauren could find her voice.
Again the silent nod.
“But you said you were thinking of quitting,” Lauren remembered that clearly. “Oh. You didn’t want to leave mission operations. Better to quit? Are you nuts?”
“I can see you decided to stay,” Emily was taking this more calmly than Lauren could manage. “But how did Lauren make the decision for you?”
Lauren hadn’t seen that. There was still a lot to learn from Emily.
“Seeing that I knew exactly who to put where. It saved lives today. I can’t do that unless I’m the Commander of Delta. Well done, Lauren Foster.” He held out his hand.
She rose to her feet before she accepted the handshake.
Then Michael headed out the door and down the stairs.
Lauren looked down at her still outstretched hand, then over at Emily.
“Praise doesn’t get much higher than that,” Emily acknowledged that what Lauren was feeling was real.
“Michael,” Patrick addressed the man as he came down the stairs.
And walked right by him.
“Colonel Gibson,” Patrick followed him several steps down the main aisle of the barn.
The colonel turned and inspected Patrick closely. If before he had appeared inscrutable and austere, he now looked imposing despite standing six inches shorter than Patrick did. Patrick wondered how he’d even dared to interrupt the man’s thoughts.
You dared because of Lauren. He squared-up his shoulders and returned the colonel’s assessing gaze.
After a long, silent inspection, Colonel Gibson spoke softly.
“You treat that woman,” he nodded up toward the Tac Room, “with the utmost care. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Patrick couldn’t even find air to breathe. The unspoken threat was more than sufficient, there was no need to give it a voice. Yet another use of silence.
Patrick watched as Michael spun on his heel, walked down the aisle and out through the door into the storm without even so much as tugging up his shirt collar. He turned right, away from the house, and disappeared from sight.
He heard the bright clicking of dog claws on wood as Rip descended the stairs from the Tac Room.
Patrick turned just as Lauren—whom he hadn’t heard—stepped straight into his arms and wrapped herself around him.
He did the same, swearing to himself far more strongly than any promise to Colonel Michael Gibson that he was never going to let her go.
“You’re all wet again,” she mumbled in his ear, her voice shaky.
“Special just for you.”
“You are,” she answered and held on like she was never going to let go either.
Chapter 13
Lauren sat on the big couch beside Emily and Mark. The two of them were holding hands as they waited for the ceremony to begin.
She wished she had someone to sit with, someone to hold her hand—neither of which sounded like her. At least not the old her, but was definitely going to be a part of the new her. The person she wanted to be holding hands with was standing at the front of the seating area with his brother, awaiting the bride’s arrival.
Patrick only had the one good suit—now completely rain-soaked. They’d attacked him, and it, with a half dozen hair dryers, but he still looked damp and rumpled. She didn’t care. He could be sitting naked in the stream for all she cared.
The image in her head—the images, for there were so many—were mostly centered around his easy smile. Whatever life threw at him, he still came up with a way to see the bright side of it. She needed to learn to do that, but she wasn’t there yet.
“Stupid dog,” Stan muttered at her from across the aisle.
Rip sat beside her, with his head resting on her knee.
“Hey, dog boy. No teasing my sweet pup.”
“Sure thing, dog girl,” he offered her one of his friendlier versions of grimace. “You know, my pack is still small enough that we can’t support two handlers—even smaller now,” he scowled at Rip, who ignored him. “But some of the exercises would be easier with two people.” This time his stern face almost shifted into a smile. “I mean, you seem okay being around dogs again…”
“You mean I’ve stopped fainting dead away every time I see one?”
“Only so much I can expect from a girl, I guess.”
It took her a moment to understand that from Stan it wasn’t an ex-SEAL dodging the edge of harassment, but rather a kindly tease from a member of the ranch.
“Um… I don’t know what’s happening yet. But if I’m here, yes. I’d be glad to help. I think… Or…” Or maybe not. There was still a scar inside her, though she could feel Rip and Patrick both working to heal it.
“Give it time, Lauren. Just give it time.” Stan’s voice was kindlier than it had been since her arrival.
“Patience comes hard.”
He nodded. “Now I know you were Special Operations.”
“Were. That’s the problem.”
He merely nodded once more, the common ground clear between them.
Patrick shuffled foot to foot, but it didn’t help. They squished. He had changed from the soaking, muddy disaster of his leather shoes into fresh socks and cowboy boots. But his pants continued to shed water. The suit pants were too narrow to slip over the boots, so he’d tucked them in where they funneled everything into his socks. His feet were cold. He squished. Under his arms hadn’t dried at all. And…
“That does it!”
“What?” Nathan looked at him in alarm.
“Next time I go rushing out into the rain, I’m going to use a jacket. And I don’t care who tries to stop me.”
“What is it with you and water lately?”
Patrick could only shrug. He glanced at Lauren chatting so easily with Stan about her dog. It had taken months of living together before Stan did more than grunt at him, and there he was all dry and comfortable chatting her up.
“The shark in Jaws spent less time wet than you have this week.”
“Shut up or I’ll throw your ring in the fire,” Patrick patted his jacket pocket to make sure the box was still there.
“Go ahead
and try. It’s the one ring to rule them all. Fire couldn’t hurt the Hobbit’s ring and it wouldn’t dare touch anything that is holding Julie and me together.”
“The One Ring belonged to Sauron. Dire evil, brother.”
“Not this one. It belongs to Julie, or will soon.”
“The first Gallagher brother to go down into the deep pits of matrimony.”
“Any bets on how far behind you are?”
Patrick didn’t like the sound of that and looked toward the back of the big room, but there were no signs of anyone coming down the stairs. “What is taking so long?”
“You’re not supposed to be the one asking that. I’m the groom. I’m the one who is supposed to be all impatient.”
“Why aren’t you, then?”
“Superior breeding.”
Patrick considered dumping a pitcher of water over Nathan’s head, but figured that would only prove his brother’s point.
“Which is all that’s keeping me from stroking out at this point.”
He checked his watch. They weren’t even running late yet, but he figured it was better not to tell Nathan that. Neither of them was holding it together very well.
Lauren leaned down to say something to her dog, then sat up and looked directly at him.
“What?” he mouthed to her over the tops of people’s heads.
She pretended to tug on non-existent lapels with pride.
So he made the same gesture, putting on his best Mr. Cool, Colin Firth expression.
She clapped both hands over her heart and pretended to swoon, landing her head on a very surprised Emily’s shoulder.
Silly!
Lauren Foster had the ability to be silly? When did that happen? He couldn’t help grinning. Sure, it was a lifelong bet, but one that would be completely worth it, because with Lauren it was never going to get dull.
This! This is what being in love feels like. It was—
Mac came hurrying up the aisle and headed for the piano.
Patrick rested a hand on Nathan’s shoulder to make sure both of them stayed upright.
Then Ama Henderson came up the aisle. She was as Emily had first described her. Tall, Native-American tan skin, and a straight fall of black hair heavily streaked with gray that fell almost to her waist. She wore a traditional Cheyenne dress of soft hide with red-dyed patterns and intricate beadwork about her shoulders. Moving to the front of the room, she indeed looked the high priestess.
Big Sky, Loyal Heart Page 19
