“She sounded pretty pissed off when I spoke to her,” Jules reported. “This guy she’s looking for? He knows she’s looking. He’s been messing with her. Playing games.”
“Thanks. I love hearing that.” Sam’s blood pressure was up so high, his ears were ringing. “Motherfucker’s a sex offender.”
“And if Alyssa were ten years old, she’d be in danger,” Jules reassured him. “She finally called in for backup, by the way. Lindsey and … damn, I’m blanking on his name … former CIA …?”
“Dave Malkoff,” Sam supplied the name of the Troubleshooters’ operative.
“That’s him.” Jules glanced at his watch. “They’re probably in Richmond with Alyssa right now, cuffing the guy.”
“Good.” Which meant Alyssa could be here by tomorrow night.
“Yeah, you’re way too happy at that news,” Jules said. “You haven’t checked your e-mail, have you?”
Sam shifted his laptop so he could see the screen, jumped on line and … Sure enough, there was an e-mail from Alyssa. Subject: I’m needed in San Diego. “No. No, no, no …”
He clicked on it, skimmed it. The good news was that she, Lindsey, and Dave had indeed caught the game-playing sex offender. The bad news was that their boss, Tom Paoletti, had another assignment waiting for Alyssa. Which meant it would be … What?
“She’s going OCONUS,” Sam told Jules, using the military term for outside of the United States. “Unless I can somehow get home by Friday morning, it’s going to be another two weeks—at least—before I see her.” She’d added a P.S. that Sam didn’t understand. “Tell Jules that Dave’s a maybe? What does that mean?”
Jules took another swig from his water bottle. “Don’t get too excited, because I haven’t cleared it yet with Tom. Or Max. I have to wait a few more hours before I call either of them. But if they give me the thumbs-up, I’ll be able to hang here, hold down the fort for you, until a replacement arrives. Alyssa told me she was going to ask Dave Malkoff.”
Sam shook his head. “As an FBI agent, you can’t—”
“I won’t,” Jules said. “You just told me the wedding’s not until Sunday, and the client’s gone until Thursday. Dave—or someone else—will definitely be here before then. I’m just going to hang here, pass along the message that you had to leave, that your replacement is on his way. I’m not getting paid, I’m just doing you a favor.”
It was one hell of a big-ass favor. “You don’t get much vacation time,” Sam pointed out. “Wouldn’t you rather, I don’t know, go on a cruise?”
“With who?” Jules gazed at him. “Ben?” He rolled his eyes as he shook his head. “Just take a shower, let’s go get lunch. If you really want to hear it, I’ll tell you the whole terrible Ben story. But I definitely need nourishment first.”
****
“He did what?” Sam said.
“Brought his beard,” Jules repeated. He leaned back to let the waiter take his plate. They sat in a little outdoor restaurant, overlooking the harbor below. The food had been unbelievable, the owner himself coming out of the kitchen to make sure everything was to their liking. “Beard is slang for a woman who pretends to be a closeted gay man’s wife or girlfriend. Ben’s beard is named Amanda. She’s his roommate. His own parents actually think she’s his fiancée.”
Sam struggled to comprehend. “So, this guy lives with a woman, except he’s gay and … she’s okay with that?”
“She’s not really his fiancée. They have separate bedrooms,” Jules told him. “She’s a grad student—they’re friends from high school. Plus, he lets her live in his condo for free.”
Sam had to make sure he understood. “So Amanda helps Ben fool everyone into thinking he’s straight.”
Jules nodded. “Don’t ask, don’t tell—I think you’ve probably heard of the policy? It sounds so innocuous, but it forces servicemen and -women into the closet. They have to hide who they are, pretend to be something they’re not. It’s okay to be gay in the military, as long as no one knows.” He was disgusted. “Ben takes Amanda to all kind of functions—including this date he had, with me.”
“It was really a date?” Sam asked, as the waiter poured them each a cup of coffee. Alyssa had told him that when it came to dating, Jules was remarkably gun-shy—and yeah, okay that was probably an unfortunate expression to use.
But Alyssa’s going theory was that Jules was still hung up on some actor he’d met out in Los Angeles—Robin something. The SOB had hurt Jules badly—their relationship had been a total train wreck. Still, Lys had been urging her old friend to get back into circulation. This Marine captain, Ben, had been calling him for a while—apparently Jules had finally taken that first-date step.
“Ben calls and goes, Hey, how are you? I just got back from overseas. I was wondering if you wanted to get together, maybe have dinner at my place?” Jules reported. “I wasn’t ready for that. So I suggested we meet at a restaurant. It wasn’t even downtown. It was suburban and discreet, and … he brought Amanda anyway. So we all sit down to dinner and it’s way weird. I mean, she was nice, but, what the hell …? She finally gets up to, you know, hit the ladies’ room, and Ben goes, I’m career military. This is how I’ve made it work. He knew I was freaked out. He said, You should’ve come over. It’s easier, more comfortable, and I said, Not for me. I said, I’m not climbing into your closet with you, and … that was that. I haven’t seen him since.” He paused. “The stupid thing is, I really like him. The really stupid thing? I’d be genuinely upset if he resigned his commission. The Marines need more officers like Ben.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Sam said.
“Thanks.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Thing is, I’m thinking about doing it.” Jules finally spoke. “Calling him and … You know, maybe if it’s just sex, it won’t bother me. As much. You know, keeping it on the down-low.”
Sam took a sip of his coffee, choosing his words carefully. “I guess whether or not you decide to do that should really depend on what you want. If it’s sex …”
“Who doesn’t want sex?” Jules pointed out.
“If it’s just sex,” Sam said, “there’s a waiter over there who’s been checking you out.” Part of him could not believe he was having this conversation. “Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea, hooking up with some stranger …”
At least Jules wouldn’t get the guy pregnant. Years ago, Sam had had sex with a stranger—a bar bunny—and he now had a daughter, Haley, and an ex-wife, Mary Lou. Talk about careless mistakes. Although Haley was definitely the best mistake he’d ever made. She was a real peach of a kid. It had all worked out in the end, but f or years it had been bad. He’d messed up his life, along with Mary Lou’s, Haley’s, and even Alyssa’s.
“Ben’s not a stranger,” Jules pointed out, taking out his wallet and paying the bill.
“What happens when you fall in love with him?” Sam asked. It was another question that he couldn’t believe he was asking. Still, the words needed to be said. “You know, I should pay that.”
Jules shook his head to both the question and the offer. “That won’t happen.” He said it with such finality and stood up as punctuation. “Let’s get back. I want to make those phone calls.”
“How much do I owe you?” Sam persisted, opening his own wallet.
Jules waved him off. “It’s on me.”
“You come out here to do me a favor, and you pay for lunch …?”
“You have no idea how much I appreciate your friendship,” Jules said.
Sam held out several bills. “Yeah, actually I do,” he said. “It’s probably as much as I appreciate yours.”
Jules couldn’t just take the money and be done with it. He had to go and hug Sam. “Thanks.”
Of course, now the gay waiter was checking Sam out, too. He even followed them out into the square as they headed up the road.
Which turned out to be provident, since they hadn’t gone far before
a group of men, ranging in ages from teens to much older, blocked their path. They were scowling and grim, and their postures were clearly meant to menace.
Jules stepped in front of Sam, his body language relaxed, a smile on his face. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said in close to perfect Italian. “Is there a problem?”
Sam counted them quickly. There were nine, but only three—red shirt, goatee, and tattoo—looked capable of holding their own in a brawl.
Tattoo let out a stream of Italian that was far too rapid-fire for Sam to understand. He definitely caught the words Rome and the Pope along with what sounded like negative language. He wasn’t quite sure what the man was saying, but there was no mistaking his intention when he roughly shoved Jules.
And just like that, the talking was over. Well, almost over. “I got Tattoo and Red Shirt,” Jules announced in English, as he effortlessly took down the man who’d shoved him.
That left Goatee for Sam. But ouch, the man had a fishing knife. Sam quickly adiosed it, breaking more than a few fingers in the process.
That was all it took. Goatee ran home, crying for his mommy, eating the dust of the rest of the gang. They’d all long since am-scrayed, except for the delusional man in the red shirt, who actually still believed he could get a piece of Jules.
The FBI agent was subcompact and had a far better fashion sense than Alyssa, but he knew how to bring it in hand-to-hand combat. He fought with an efficiency of movement that Sam admired. It was beautiful, actually. Jules fought with his brain, unlike Red Shirt, who’d let loose his inner Neanderthal, swinging blindly, flailing mindlessly—making himself good and winded in the process.
Jules, on the other hand, was breathing about as hard as he’d been during lunch.
Red Shirt came at him one too many times, and Jules dodged him yet again, this time tripping him on his way past, using an expertly placed elbow to help the man greet the ground that much harder. He didn’t get back up.
The gay waiter, meanwhile, had run to get the entire serving staff of the restaurant, including the owner.
As Sam watched, Jules turned to face this new threat, ready to take them all out if necessary. But—again, since his brain was fully functioning—he immediately recognized them for what they were. The cavalry come to save them. Not that they’d needed it.
The owner of the restaurant spoke fluent English. “This is not the first time such an outrage has happened here. Such anti-American sentiment is not helpful to our town. Tourism is down as it is.”
Anti-American? Not anti-gay?
The man ushered them into his kitchen, ordering his staff to bring the first-aid kit and ice for Jules’s raw knuckles. Sam looked at Jules, but he was playing right along, talking about the anti-American protests in Greece and even Dubai, as he helped Sam over to a table and pushed him into a chair.
It was then Sam realized he was bleeding. He’d gotten cut by that knife.
It wasn’t too much more than a scratch, but the restaurant owner—who was also the chef—wasn’t about to let them leave without cleaning them up. And feeding them a sampling of all his desserts, which was fine by Sam.
The man even drove them back to the resort in his little Mini. It was only then, after they said their good-byes, as they headed down the pathway past the pool, that Sam asked, “Anti-American?”
But Jules’s phone rang. It was his boss’s administrative assistant, Laronda. It was okay with Max if Jules wanted to take a few more days off. Which meant …
“Let’s get you a flight home,” Jules said.
But Sam shook his head. “Anti-American, my ass. I’ve been here for weeks. That was not about us being American. That was about you being gay. I’m not leaving you here alone.”
Jules rolled his eyes. “That’s ridiculous.”
Sam held out his bandaged hand. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
This was going nowhere fast, but Sam couldn’t let it go. “Jules—”
“Don’t you get it?” Jules asked, leading the way up the stairs to Sam’s hotel suite. “This is my life. I could be jumped, beaten, and, yeah, even killed for being gay—not just here, but in any town in virtually any country in the world. Particularly in the United States, by the way. Are you going to follow me home to DC, Sam? Lots of hate crimes happen there, you know.”
“Then maybe you should have a beard.” Sam knew as soon as the words left his mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. But then he unlocked the door to his suite, and the situation went from bad to worse.
Chloe, dressed in only a pair of leopard-print thong panties and some very high heels, was dancing to music on the radio while fixing herself a drink at his wet bar.
A drink? Another drink. Clearly, she’d had quite a few already. “There you are,” she said, as she caught sight of Sam. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Once again, Jules stepped in front of Sam. “You must be Chloe. I love your shoes.”
She grabbed—apparently just as Jules had hoped she would—for her robe. In fact, he even helped her into it. “Pack,” he ordered Sam over his shoulder, as he led Chloe out onto the balcony. “You remind me of Scarlett Johansson,” Sam heard him saying to the girl. “You must get that all the time—you don’t? Really? You look a lot like her …”
****
Sam was almost completely packed, but he wasn’t going anywhere without Jules. He stood in the bathroom. It didn’t make sense to pack up his toilet kit, only to unpack it again tonight when he went to bed. His clothes were no problem. He could easily live out of his suitcase. He’d look slightly more rumpled than usual, but …
“I got you on the four o’clock flight to London.” Jules stood in the door.
Sam looked at him in the mirror. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
Jules nodded. “I appreciate your loyalty, but Chloe had a little confession that, well, she asked me to share with you.”
Sam waited.
“The bride and groom have apparently eloped,” Jules told him. “The wedding party is indefinitely postponed. Your services are no longer needed—as of last night, as a matter of fact.”
“What?”
“Apparently Chloe neglected to tell her sisters about this, too. She wanted to stay a few extra days, and … She’s young and misdirected. Apparently she’s got quite the crush on you, cowboy.”
Sam used one arm to sweep what Jules would call his “products” off the sink counter and into his bag. “The four o’clock to London will only get me home in time if nothing goes wrong,” he said tightly. No delays, no canceled flights, no screwups between connecting flights. “And I’m still not leaving unless you’ve got a flight out of here, too.”
“Yeah, about that,” Jules said. “Confession part two. Apparently she hired those men to, well, as she put it, make me go away.”
Sam looked at him. “Young, misdirected—and vicious.”
“She is a little socially disengaged,” Jules said. “But she’s leaving, too. With her sisters. I thought I’d hang for a few days. Maybe get to know Paolo a little better.”
“Paolo?” Sam asked.
“He owns that restaurant,” Jules admitted. “While you were washing out that cut on your hand, we got to talking and … he, um, offered to give me cooking lessons.”
Sam laughed. He hadn’t even realized that the restaurant owner—an older man with gray at his temples, good-looking in a kind of Italian Tom Hanks kind of way—was gay. “That’s a new way of saying it.” He sobered fast. “Are you sure you want to …?”
“Sweetie, the only thing I’m absolutely sure about is that I don’t want a beard,” Jules said.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Sam told his friend. “I didn’t mean it. But I worry about you.”
“I know. I forgive you. I just … I want a relationship with someone like Paolo who’s not afraid to be himself,” Jules said. “God, I really want someone I’m in such a hurry to go home to that I’ll pack in that horrific way
that you just did.” He laughed, but then sobered. “You know, before? When you asked me what I want? I want what you have with Alyssa, Sam. I want what Max has with Gina, what Jack has with Scott. I won’t have that with Ben. Or with Robin, who’s in fucking London right now promoting his latest movie, so I’m not going to London with you, even if it’s only to catch a flight to New York, thanks but no thanks.”
Maybe Alyssa was right. It sure seemed that all roads led back to this Robin guy.
“I remember,” Sam said, “being in love with Alyssa, but she didn’t want anything to do with me. I was so desperate not to think about her, and … Nobody could compete. Messing around with other women didn’t help. It only made me miss her more. Plus the other women usually ended up hurt, which sucked.”
“I hear what you’re saying.” Jules nodded. “And I appreciate your candor. But you need to go, or you’re going to miss that plane.”
Sam grabbed his bags. Opened the door. “Thanks again for everything.”
“I’ll give you a call in a coupla days,” Jules said. “Kiss the shit out of Alyssa for me, okay?”
Sam laughed. “Absolutely.”
****
Alyssa wasn’t waiting for him at LAX. She was in San Diego, at the Troubleshooters Incorporated office, organizing the gear her team—Sam included—would need for this next assignment. It was cold where they were going, and they’d need to stay hidden, which meant camping without the benefit of fire.
Freeze-your-balls-off-style camping was definitely not Sam’s favorite thing to do, but this time, he absolutely couldn’t wait. A pup tent, a two-person thermal sleeping bag, and his incredible woman …
Yeah, he’d find a way to keep plenty warm.
Traffic was heavy, not just on the Five, but off it as well. He finally arrived, and, yes. There she was, in the parking lot. His wife. Working to fit three truckloads of supplies into two tiny packing crates. And getting the job done with room to spare.
Sam just stood there for a moment, watching her, just letting his heart swell. Her dark hair was long enough to pull back into a ponytail, but tendrils escaped, curling around her face. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman in the entire world, even without any makeup, dressed down in forest cammie-print BDUs and lumberjack boots for two weeks of stomping around in the woods.
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