Ultimate Courage

by Piper J. Drake

  “This is all too much.” She hated to suspect his kindness, but it was too good to be true. “I can’t even begin to repay you, and you’ve only just met me.”

  Alex was still. It wasn’t a question of simply not moving. Everything about him had gone motionless. She shrank in on herself, sure he was going to explode with anger.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, he turned away from her and faced the door. “You can leave if you feel safer. Do it before classes are over and they set the security system. I’ll have a word with Gary and Greg, and no one will ask any questions or try to convince you to stay. No pressure. Do what’s right for you.”

  If he’d even sounded upset, she could’ve gotten angry back. Could’ve built up the momentum to leave.

  She was very tired of running. What she was looking for, hoping for, was a place to rest long enough to build a life again.

  “I could be playing all of you,” she whispered.

  He balled his free hand up into a fist, then let it go. “You could be. Not likely. I’ve heard a lot of lies over the years. Met more liars than I care to count. I recognize lies when they’re right in front of my face.”

  She didn’t have an answer to that. Her fear, suspicion, guilt spiraled down into her gut and left her chest feeling hollow. “I’m sorry.”

  He still didn’t turn to look at her. “Boom liked you. Souze liked you. That’s enough for me. The great thing about kids and dogs: they don’t know how to lie. Not really. They don’t know how to hide themselves from the world, and it gives them a simple perspective. When I suspect I’m thinking too hard, I fall back to their opinion.”

  Something to think on, if she could pull her thoughts into any kind of comprehensible order.

  He pulled the door open and stepped out, pausing in the doorway. “They liked you. That’s enough for me. Sleep well, Elisa. You’re safe. And if you’re not here when I swing by in the morning to pick you up, it was nice to meet you.”

  And he left. Just like that.

  Chapter Seven

  Finally home, Rojas gave his friend a wave as the car backed down the drive toward the gated entrance. He decided to skip the main house altogether and cut around the side to head directly to his house.

  House. Home.

  Damn, he’d have never thought he’d have one like this—or one at all. It wasn’t huge or anything his ex-wife would’ve deigned to live in, but it was still a two-story with three bedrooms, two and a half baths. It was enough room for him to raise Serena up right.

  Coming to Hope’s Crossing Kennels had been the smart thing to do. Hell, he could have gone elsewhere and gotten higher-paying work, but Boom would’ve spent too much time home alone. Here, there were people to watch his back—and her.

  He trudged up the porch steps and let himself in the front door.

  Forte sat on the couch with a beer in hand. “Boom took her meds. She’s asleep.”

  Rojas grunted. Just as well, with her yogurt half melted. He’d only meant to spend a minute talking to Elisa, but something about her had drawn him in. He couldn’t help but linger. And he had no idea what in hell had possessed him to reach out and touch her. But her dark hair and those stormy blue eyes tugged at him in too many ways. And the way she bit her lower lip made him want to kiss it better.

  It’d been a long time since he’d stopped in his tracks and daydreamed about a woman.

  The yogurt was melting more.

  He continued into their small kitchen and popped the whole bag from the shop into the freezer. Boom could have some frozen yogurt in the morning after a solid breakfast.

  His stomach growled, and he snagged his own container from the bag before shutting the freezer door. Heading back to the living room, he sat heavily in the armchair opposite Forte, who sat on the couch.

  His armchair and his couch. He let out a sigh. Good to be home.

  Forte took a gulp of beer and scratched his belly. Rojas was reasonably sure Boom had learned how to belch from him.

  The exemplary role model in question yawned. “So what’s up with our new logistics person?”

  “I’m pretty sure civilians would call the role an administrative assistant. And she’s only our new admin if she takes the job.” Rojas twiddled his spoon between his fingers. “She’s still deciding.”

  “You seemed to be getting acquainted with her pretty well.” Forte was fishing. He liked gossip almost as much as Sophie did, and nothing got past either of them. If Cruz was around, Rojas would bet him a twenty that Sophie would be over bright and early with some of her homemade baked goods the first chance she got to find out more about Elisa.

  Since Cruz wasn’t here tonight, Alex held his peace. Forte tended to be a touch sensitive about all things concerning his childhood friend. There was a lot of history between Forte and Sophie.

  Speaking of history, Elisa definitely had some to discuss eventually.

  “Don’t know if we actually got to know each other or anything, but we did have a few interesting conversations.” Rojas shoveled a spoonful of less-than-frozen yogurt into his mouth and swallowed, letting it go down slow. When he could speak again, he uttered a relieved groan. “I talked more today than I probably have all year.”

  Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but he wasn’t planning on classifying it. Especially not after he’d discussed almost the same line of thought with Elisa. She’d been damned cute chewing on that bit of logic.

  “Happens when you interact with people.” Forte was all sorts of agreeable this evening.

  “She’s got some serious personal baggage, though.” Rojas took another spoonful and chewed on the accompanying gummy bear. He tended to give Boom fruit with her frozen yogurt, but tonight he’d indulged in sour gummies, gummy bears, and gummy worms. Because he was an adult and could choose to dive into a sugar high before bedtime with no one to hold him accountable but himself.

  Forte snorted. “We’ve all got personal shit tossed in the back of our closets.”

  Rojas waved a free hand in the vague direction of the front door. “And here, we all know enough to watch each other’s backs. That’s my point. If she’s going to work here, we need enough of a briefing to be prepared for any issues.”

  Forte raised an eyebrow. “You think she’s bringing actual trouble to our door?”

  No doubt. It was his practice to keep his teammates informed in as timely a manner as possible, so he suffered no guilt bringing Forte up to speed on the text Elisa had received.

  “Huh. All on its own, the text is harmless.” Forte took a slow pull from the beer.

  Rojas waited. They’d all sent similarly harmless texts, messages, and various electronic communications in the past. Worded properly, such a communication could be completely overlooked when taken out of context. And they were meant to be. It was the context they’d been trained to look for in the right circumstances.

  “You think someone’s looking for her.” More fishing. It was Forte’s way, and Rojas didn’t mind at the moment. Helped him get his thoughts straight.

  “She went paler than a ghost when she got it. Thought she was going to pass out right there in the kennels. Souze tuned into her reaction from three kennels down.” Rojas closed his mouth as his temper started to heat his words. He took another mouthful of frozen yogurt.

  His temper needed to be kept cool anywhere near Boom. Asleep or not, she could wake at any moment, and she deserved a dad with his own issues under control. He still struggled with keeping his calm in public, crowded places, but here at home he could keep his shit together. This was a controlled environment. Secure. Safe.

  “Yeah? Souze?” Forte sounded surprised. “Whole reason we didn’t place him along with the other two was because he didn’t take well to any of the potential handlers. That dog doesn’t warm up to anybody.”

  Rojas didn’t blame him. The dog in question didn’t miss much of anything, true, but he also didn’t spare strangers more than the amount of attention it too
k to warn them away usually. For Souze to react to Elisa’s fear, it had to be unusual.

  “If we make some assumptions…” And Forte made them all the time, though they were more like educated guesses. But it made him excellent in the field, able to anticipate and plan for unusual circumstances that might otherwise catch a team by surprise in a very bad way. “We’re figuring she’s got unwanted attention to deal with and a need to stay hard to find. Could be an issue with authorities or a stalker. I’m thinking the latter more than the former, though. She didn’t seem the type to participate in illegal activities.”

  Forte wiggled his eyebrows.

  Rojas barked out a laugh and nodded. Elisa Hall did not have a good poker face. Every thought showed up on her expressive face, and it was fascinating to watch. It also made her a seriously bad liar. “She seemed relieved to hide out at Revolution once she got over a hefty fear of strangers.”

  And she hadn’t flinched at the idea of the police showing up when he’d warned her about tripping the security alarms. If anything, she’d filed the bit of information away as if it could be used in the future, like a lifeline or an escape route.

  “Gary and Greg are good with twitchy personalities,” Forte said approvingly.

  Forte went over to train at Revolution on occasion. Not as much as Rojas did when he was up to dealing with people. Actually, the training helped take the edge off his anxiety, so Rojas tried to get there at least once a week. Sparring with some of the better martial artists in the smaller, private sessions helped him work off tension.

  But neither Forte nor Rojas was good with the shyer students normally. The ones who came for self-defense too late and already had the bruised look of someone irreparably harmed. Those people generally had learned the hard way to seek out training or had been recommended to self-defense as a form of therapy after a traumatic experience. It was a good way to build up confidence, whether it hadn’t yet been gained or had been taken away. Gary and Greg worked with them, coaxed back their confidence, helped them rebuild some of what they’d lost.

  It was why he’d thought to take Elisa to them in the first place. She wasn’t as bad as some, but she had the look.

  “Yeah. Not sure if she’ll stay. She’s got a serious chip on her shoulder about accepting help. She might not be around tomorrow.” And normally, he’d wish a person well if they came and went so quickly. He wasn’t generally one to get attached, not even to the few women he’d dated in the few years he’d been living here.

  Serena was his focus. His daughter. Boom.

  “But you decided to give her a reason.” Forte straightened to a more upright sitting position and placed the half-finished beer bottle on the coffee table. “You’ve got a soft spot for the ones like her.”

  “Not sure I know what you mean.” Only he did. He and Forte had built a lot of history over the years, first in the military and then back here in the States.

  “Doesn’t matter if it’s a woman or a dog or a green recruit, you step up to give the rescued ones an extra chance or three.” Forte wagged his finger at Rojas. “It got you into trouble when we were deployed.”

  And back at home, too. He’d given his ex-wife a few chances too many even after she’d presented him with divorce papers and she’d gone down a slippery slope. By the time he’d realized she’d gotten too entrenched in her painkiller addictions it was too late. She’d died while he was on the way back to home soil. He hadn’t been able to do anything but comfort his daughter when he’d returned, and fight for custody of her when his ex-wife’s parents tried to claim he was unfit to raise her.

  Rojas finished up the last of his yogurt and gummy candy.

  “Granted, she seems like a good person,” Forte continued. “It pisses me off to think about what probably happened to her to make her as twitchy as she was. I wasn’t sure she’d last the morning with the way she’d look up at either of the two of us coming in and out every ten or twenty minutes. It was almost like she was suspicious.”

  Frowning, Rojas shifted his weight in his seat, moved to defend her some. “Nothing wrong with acknowledging people as they come and go. Better than her ignoring us or pretending we’re not around. She’s got some steel strapped to her spine.”

  Figuratively speaking.

  Forte chuckled. “Oh, I saw it. She sat bolt upright whenever I came through. Watchful. Alert. Determined to put up a strong front.”

  To call it cute would’ve been insulting to Elisa. Rojas was glad his friend hadn’t. If either of them was prone to using their vocabulary, maybe they’d call it endearing. Worth some extra effort to foster it, give her a place to come into her own.

  He got a sense from her that there was a lot more under the surface.

  “For what it’s worth, I hope she comes back in the morning.” Forte picked up his beer and drained the rest of it.

  “Cruz is back tomorrow, right?” Rojas asked, standing as Forte did.

  “Yup.”

  Rojas held out his hand for the empty beer bottle. “I had her give me her phone, swapped it out with a clean pre-paid. I pulled the sim card and dropped her old phone off across the way at a cell phone shop in Jersey.”

  The detour was another reason why the frozen yogurt was mostly melted.

  “Yeah?” Forte spent a few seconds considering. “Cruz could probably track down the number sending those texts to her, with her permission. Sim card should have the data.”

  “I figure if she comes back tomorrow and gets to know us, maybe it’ll be worth it to take a closer look at who we might be expecting on our doorstep.” Rojas shrugged. “With her permission, of course.”

  “’Course.” Forte headed to the front door. “Can see why you didn’t tell her tonight. It’d be creepy for her potential new employer to suggest tracing the phone numbers in her call and text history. Goes beyond the usual background check and way into what-the-fu—”

  Forte glanced up the stairs toward Boom’s room and finished lamely, “Fudgery.”

  Rojas didn’t respond, embarrassed.

  Elisa thought of them as dog trainers. And, yeah, they trained military working dogs. But she didn’t yet have a complete understanding of the backgrounds of her employers or what they were each capable of, what they’d done in the past. If she did, he was willing to lay odds she wouldn’t come back in the morning.

  Granted, a lot of normal administrative assistants might prefer not to work for them for similar reasons. Rojas was hoping that having the chance to get to know them all would help.

  Or it could chase her away. Either way, it’d at least be on the basis of their personalities and not their background.

  Forte studied him. “Well, no harm in easing her into the full introductions slowly. It’s a lot to take in all at once and we already buried her under paperwork, fussy clients, and dogs. Maybe if she does show up for work, we should let her settle into the familiar for the day and give her the rest a little at a time over the course of this week. Give her time to get settled.”

  Good idea. Great, actually. Absolutely sensible. Rojas nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  He didn’t know why he was so concerned with whether or not Elisa came back, but if he got right down to it, he wanted to see her again.

  No idea why, but there it was.

  * * *

  Joseph Corbin Junior sat on a worn sofa, the only decent seat in the living room. Mary Hall, Elisa’s mother, clattered around in the tiny utility kitchen putting together refreshments.

  “Really, Mary, there’s no need. I don’t have time to stay long.” Truly, he preferred not to linger even a minute more than necessary.

  She came out with a glass of tap water and a plate of haphazardly piled cheese and crackers. “Oh, I know you’re busy, Joseph, but it’s been so long since either you or Elisa has visited. Does she really have to be away for so long?”

  Joseph glanced at the jumble of orange and white squares of cheese and made an effort not to wrinkle his nose. Thankfully, he’d educ
ated Elisa to have a more discerning palette. “This is the trip of a lifetime for her. You know that. She’s off checking on my European offices and exploring the sights to see along the way.”

  “You’re such a wonderful fiancée to send her on an adventure like that. I can’t believe she’s called and pretended to still be in the States. Her own mother and she won’t tell me where she really is.” Mary sighed. “To be honest, I’m a little bit hurt she didn’t think to take me with her, since you couldn’t take time away from your main office to go. I’d have loved to travel around Europe. It must be nice.”

  Oh, of course she would. Mary Hall lived in a modest ranch house on the edge of suburbia in one of the least affluent neighborhoods in this part of California. She’d never been across the country, much less an ocean. A single woman of limited means and from no background worth noting, it’d been amazing she’d managed to raise a flower as exquisite as Elisa.

  But Elisa was his now and Mary Hall was only useful as long as there was a chance to tie Elisa to him through her mother.

  “Maybe she knows how disappointed you are.” He smiled. “But it is entertaining to hear what different places she’s pretending to be visiting. Please do keep me up to date on the latest locations. She’s got such an imagination.”

  “It’s been a while since she last checked in. Couldn’t Elisa at least remember to call me—”

  His phone rang, cutting her off. He retrieved it from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. “Excuse me, I’m expecting an urgent call.”

  Mary stepped back, a flush in her cheeks. “Of course. I’ll just be in the kitchen.”

  Putting the phone to his ear, Joseph didn’t take his gaze from the hallway mirror. The reflection showed him Mary standing in her kitchen space, busying herself with straightening postcards and pictures on her refrigerator.

  How quaint.

  “Yes?” He answered his phone.