The Final Mission

by Rachel Lee

  “Not as much, at least not around here.” She smiled into the darkness. “You know, it’s been nice to get away from all that back home. If you want to know what it feels like to be a fifth wheel, be a woman on a SWAT team. It’s not that I can’t do it, it’s just that they don’t think I can. And when I do, they act all surprised.”

  “That must be galling.”

  “It’s the way it is. For all the progress we’ve made, we still don’t seem capable of seeing people as just people. We’re always laboring under expectations from hidden assumptions. I don’t even think most of the guys on my team realize that they have those expectations of me. Sometimes it’s annoying, but sometimes it’s just funny.”

  “What about as an investigator? Is it just as hard?”

  “Less so. There’ve been enough women in law enforcement over the years to remove some of the stigma. On the investigation side, I’ve run into very little sexism. It’s when we get to the force reaction stuff that I start to run into it again. It’s even weirder because while I’m getting the training, I know where I’m going to be slotted in the team—not as rapid force reaction but as an investigator.”

  “But they still make you take the training.”

  “Of course. I might be needed.”

  She caught his nod from the corner of her eye as the moonlight returned when a cloud moved on.

  He startled her by holding out his hand. After a moment, she pulled her own hand from her pocket and returned his grip.

  “I guess I know my weakness,” he said, sounding faintly amused.

  “What’s that?”

  “I like my mares strong.”

  For an instant she almost bridled, then she caught the humor and laughed. He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. “You’ll get sick of me soon enough,” she promised.

  “Only if you stick around long enough for me to find out.”

  What did he mean by that? All of a sudden her heart was galloping, and the air seemed to have been sucked out of the night. Then he turned to look at her. She wished there was more light, because she couldn’t read his face.

  “We’re adults,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I hate playing teenage games.”

  She managed a nod, but still couldn’t speak.

  “When a stallion wants a mare, he noses around until she gives him an answer. The women decide, you know. Men ask, but women decide.”

  “Yes.” The word came out on a mere whisper.

  He tugged her hand. She rose, letting him draw her across the couple of feet that separated them. When he pulled her down on his lap, she offered no protest at all.

  With her legs across the arm of the chair, and his arm around her back, she felt cradled in heat.

  “It’s cold out here,” he said. “A good deterrent to keep us from going too far. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to try a bit of this feeling on for size.”

  “Are…are you sure?”

  “Aren’t you? Aren’t you curious about what you’re feeling, what I’m feeling?”

  “Yes. But…” But what? Now more than her heart was pounding. Her entire body had begun to throb with hunger. She wanted this man. Who cared what price there might be later? She’d paid it before, she could pay it again.

  And the admission price, right now, didn’t seem steep at all.

  He moved his face closer, then waited. She turned a little toward him, and he closed the distance, his mouth finding hers surely. His hand came up to cup her cheek, warming it while his other arm continued to support her back.

  She wasn’t trapped. She could pull away, slide away, at any instant. But heavens, she didn’t want to. She had the memory of a hug, of one kiss, and both of them goaded her to find out more about what this man could evoke in her.

  Expectation and anticipation knotted in her as she opened herself to his kiss. Sometimes you just had to damn the consequences and push on because you knew if you didn’t you’d regret it. Hell, that’s what had gotten her out here in the first place.

  And if she stopped this, she would wonder till her dying day what it might have been like with Dom.

  That was not a question she wanted to leave unanswered.

  Dom knew he was playing with fire, but something inside him was telling him it was time to come out of his cave. The cave where he’d been living since Mary’s death, the safe little world where upsets were few and far between, and the risks of loss were minimized. Where he controlled as much as any human could.

  Control had become very important to him. Too important. Some of that was good, because he had two boys to raise and protect. Some of it was unhealthy, because he’d circumscribed his life to this ranch, to his sons, to Mary’s parents and people he couldn’t avoid running into.

  And in his drive to control everything he could control, he’d buried himself too deep in his work. He had filled every possible moment with chores around the ranch and taking care of the boys, but he’d forgotten to leave some room for himself.

  All because he didn’t want to risk the pain again.

  But now something was pushing at him to take a first step, to make a new connection. He knew it wouldn’t last, but he needed to take the step anyway.

  Holding a woman again felt so good. Just the weight of her on his lap, the feel of her body against his, the way her mouth felt so soft and warm, those things tore down barriers he hadn’t really been aware of.

  Human contact. Not the kind he had with his kids, but the kind he’d been denying himself for a long time now.

  When she slipped her arm up around his neck, he felt pure pleasure, pure welcome, of a kind that had long been gone from his life. And he realized just how much he missed it and needed it.

  As if he’d been only half-alive for too long now.

  He deepened his kiss and she welcomed him into the hot depths of her mouth. Tongues played tentatively at first, then with greater purpose and complete surety. Heat made his groin feel heavy, a delicious heat he’d been denied for too long.

  Questions evaporated. The world went away.

  Encouraged, he slid his hand from her cheek to her neck, and then lower to cup her breast. It was fuller than he expected, and the sensation of holding it, gently kneading it, quickened his heartbeat. Beneath his palm, through all the layers, he could feel her nipple harden in response.

  Man, it was like stepping into warm sunshine after an endless night. Nerves he had nearly forgotten sang with hope and need. Life reawakened in him, reminding him of all the goodness he’d been missing.

  He wanted her, and for the first time in ages he remembered that wanting could be a good thing. Impulses long forgotten tore through him, filling him, and he was about to slide her from his lap so that he could embrace her more fully, discover her more fully, when somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind he heard an approaching car engine.

  Tearing his mouth from Courtney’s, ignoring her murmured protest, he looked up. Someone was coming up the long drive.

  “Dom…”

  Oh, the sweet sound of a woman’s voice filled with longing. “Courtney…someone’s coming.”

  She looked adorably confused for a couple of seconds, then leaped from his lap as if ejected by a spring. “What?”

  “Someone’s coming up the drive.”

  She turned and looked. “Great timing,” she said a bit sharply.

  He laughed. “Yeah. But damn, that was great.”

  He caught her hand and squeezed it quickly before releasing it. He didn’t ask her how she felt about it. She had already let him know.

  She sagged onto the chair beside him, and he was surprised to realize that she was suddenly feeling a bit shy. That seemed so out of character for her, from what he’d seen of her, but she seemed unwilling to look in his direction.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I usually require a couple of dinner dates before I go that far.”

  A laugh escaped him. “Having me cook for you doesn’t count?”
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  At that she finally laughed a little herself and looked his way. “I guess it does, cowboy. I guess it does.” Then, “Who do you suppose is coming?”

  “I have no idea. If someone called to let me know, I must have missed it.”

  “I probably could have missed anything short of a nuclear bomb in the last five minutes.”

  That made him feel good. “Me, too.” In fact, the ache in his body didn’t want to subside. And that felt good, too.

  The car drew close enough that Dom could make out the shape of a sheriff’s SUV with roof lights. “What the hell?” he wondered, standing.

  “A sheriff?” Courtney asked, and he realized she had come to stand beside him. “Isn’t this a little extreme because you didn’t go to the feed store?”

  “Yeah, except everybody around here knows everybody’s business. I just hope something bad didn’t happen.” His first thought, of course, was Mary’s parents. His stomach did an uncomfortable flip.

  The SUV pulled to a stop near the porch, and Gage Dalton climbed out, his scarred face shadowed from the moon by the brim of his tan Stetson, but otherwise familiar in his lean ranginess and the way he limped.

  “Evening, Dom,” Gage said.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Not a thing. Just thought I’d stop by.”

  Dom leaned forward, putting both hands on the railing. “You guys drive up without warning, and I leap to awful conclusions.”

  “Sorry. It was an impulse as I was passing on the way home. I was out looking in on the Kipes.”

  Gage stepped onto the porch and Dom made introductions. “Sheriff Gage Dalton, Agent Courtney Tyson.”

  “Micah told me about you,” Gage said as he shook Courtney’s hand. “So you think Mary was murdered?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  Dalton nodded. Then he turned to Dom. “Sorry, didn’t mean to worry you, but I was just about to pass your place when I remembered what Micah said.”

  Courtney spoke. “Is it all over the state now?”

  “Micah wouldn’t tell anyone but me,” Gage said with certainty. “I just thought I’d check in since I was practically on your doorstep.”

  “Come on in,” Dom said. “I can make some coffee.”

  “That’d be nice,” Gage agreed. “Thanks. I’d love a decent cup. My stomach’s getting too cranky to handle Velma’s brew anymore.”

  “Velma?” Courtney asked as they walked to the kitchen. She almost gasped as the light revealed the burn scars on one side of Gage’s face that had before been hidden by shadows. She caught herself just in time.

  “Our dispatcher,” Gage said, removing his hat and hanging it on the back of an empty chair. “You could use her coffee for battery acid but nobody has the heart to tell her. I didn’t mind so much ten years ago.”

  “Velma’s an institution,” Dom agreed as he started the coffeepot. “Not a lady you want on your wrong side.”

  Gage grinned lopsidedly as he sat, and looked at Courtney. “Velma seems to have been dispatcher since Moses was a boy. I don’t think anyone’s gonna ever pry her from that desk. And she’s mother hen to damn near the entire county. I think we’d have an uprising if we ever tried to retire her.”

  “She’s been there my entire life,” Dom said. He joined them at the table while the coffee brewed. “So what prompted this impulse of yours?”

  “I told you. I heard Agent Tyson thinks Mary was murdered.”

  Dom settled back. “And?”

  “And,” Gage said, “I wanted to know if there’s anything we can do to help locally.”

  Courtney felt astonished. No one had offered her any help on this case after the first few weeks. “This is unofficial,” she said finally.

  “I know. Micah told me. You met the stone wall.”

  “Exactly. So I don’t want it getting out anywhere that I’m looking into it.”

  “It might surprise you,” Gage said, “given that I’m here because of what Micah told me, but we can be the soul of discretion in the department. People in this county trust us not to gossip. If it doesn’t make the logs or the prosecutor’s office, it doesn’t get out. Loose lips are frowned on.”

  “But obviously you talk among yourselves.”

  Gage gave his lopsided smile. “But only among ourselves, and only when it’s necessary. Micah thought maybe we could help in some way. Mary was one of ours. So consider our resources at your disposal if you need them. And if you need us to look into things without letting anyone know why, or who we’re helping, that’s entirely possible.”

  “Thank you.” For some odd reason her eyes started to burn. “You don’t know…” She couldn’t even think how to phrase what she was feeling.

  “I know. I was DEA before I came here. Resource allocation can be infuriating. I’ve been faced with someone higher-up deciding a case was too iffy and the cost not worth it.”

  She nodded.

  “It leaves you feeling very alone and very angry,” Gage said. “So, you’re not alone now if you need some help. I’ve got sources that reach far outside this county, and every one of them is discreet.”

  “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “It’s the kind of thing I can’t ignore, Ms. Tyson. I’m just not built that way.”

  “Me, either,” she admitted.

  Dom noticed she glanced his way, as if still unsure what he thought about this. His feelings hadn’t changed—in the end it didn’t really matter how Mary had died—but faced with two people who believed that was an issue, he wasn’t about to trot out his contrariness.

  But depending on how things went over the next few days, he might trot it out for Courtney again. Because all of a sudden he needed her to understand something. Something important. And they’d have to sort it out somehow.

  But for now he just nodded noncommittally and let the sheriff and the agent talk. Later there’d be time for other stuff.

  Chapter 11

  The conversation with Gage Dalton left Courtney feeling better. She didn’t see how she could use his offer of help, at least not yet, but he had indeed made her feel less alone on her quest. More justified in making it.

  Dom hadn’t really looked thrilled, but he hadn’t objected. He also hadn’t made another pass at her, but after Gage left it was getting late and she’d thought it politic to go to bed.

  Just why, she wasn’t sure, especially since she wound up lying awake and staring into the dark for hours. She heard him come upstairs, heard him close his bedroom door for the night.

  And then all alone in the dark, she tried to ask herself what the hell she was doing. There weren’t any answers, not anymore.

  Just questions. Too many questions.

  Nor did they get answered over the next days. She found herself falling easily into the rhythms of the ranch. The boys seemed to like her and she wound up doing all sorts of things with them, from chores, to schoolwork, to just playing hide-and-seek.

  She finished going through the things in “Mary’s Box” as she’d come to think of the large filing box Dom had given her, and she’d found nothing else.

  She had no case. No case at all.

  Well, she told herself, it had all been worth it just to meet Mary’s family. Dom had apparently put whatever had begun to brew between them on a back burner, because he didn’t approach her again. Just as well, she told herself.

  Guilt still plagued her a bit, as if she were illicitly attracted to her friend’s husband, even though she knew Mary’s death had changed all that. What’s more, she was leaving soon, going back to Georgia, and both of them knew they didn’t want to live that way. He’d been through it once. She didn’t want to try it.

  So the most they could have was a fling. And maybe they’d both be happier in the end if they didn’t.

  She even expected him to call off their trip to watch the migrations, but he didn’t. Indeed, Friday afternoon he packed a duffel for the boys and took them to their grandparents’ house.

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nbsp; Left alone, she accessed her private email folder and scanned once again the case notes she had taken, the evidence that she had managed to make copies of. And for the hundredth time, she tried to put it all together in a way that would reveal something other than what she already knew:

  Some Iraqi women and girls had been raped, most likely by troops. They didn’t even know how many. The Iraqi women wouldn’t talk, many of their husbands and fathers didn’t want to see them shamed if even they knew about it, and the few who had gotten mad enough to complain didn’t know enough to make a complete case.

  Mary had gotten wind of it, though. After Courtney had asked her to keep her ear to the ground, apparently she managed to ask a few questions, just enough to let Courtney know that the rapes had occurred.

  Between cultural attitudes toward rape and the high wall of distrust between the occupiers and the locals, no one wanted to say anything.

  But apparently Mary had become enough of a threat that they’d killed her. Because the result of the roadside attack that had killed Mary simply didn’t fit an insurgent attack. Only one person dead? No one else injured? And only one vehicle in the convoy, contrary to operational orders. There should have been another Humvee in addition to the one carrying Mary and the two corpsmen who took care of male patients at the clinic. At least one, pacified zone or not.

  Yes, she thought, putting her head in her hand. It could just be an amazing confluence of factors. But since she had been slated to meet Mary only two days later, since Mary had let her know she had learned something, Courtney found it hard to believe that this all had been random chance.

  Then she heard a ping and looked up at her email. Her friend had answered, with pointed brevity.

  “Captain Anderson D. Metcalfe.”

  Courtney froze, and a moment later her stomach plummeted. She knew that name. Captain Metcalfe was an academy graduate, the son of an army general with tons of power and pull. No doubt Captain Metcalfe was destined for great things.

  No doubt if he was in any way involved in what had happened either to the Iraqi women or Mary, he was untouchable. Courtney had requested background info from Lena if she found a face match and its absence from the email spoke volumes. Large volumes. It was hands-off, and stand down.