Strictly Need to Know

by MB Austin

“Safe from who? Them, or you?” Bubbles’s look reminded her how pointless it was to bullshit her best friend.

  But both were true, really. “From any and all threats. I can keep her alive, but I can’t make her happy.” Maji pushed past a worried-looking Bubbles and headed for the cottage.

  Inside, they found Rey standing at the kitchen counter, eating the rest of the dinner that she and Bubbles had thrown together earlier. He didn’t look pleased to see Maji.

  “Hey,” she said. “Don’t worry. I was careful getting here, and I won’t be back.”

  He nodded. “Good call.” He smiled at his wife, in the doorway behind her. “Hey, guapa. Thanks for supper.”

  “You’re home!” She gave him a hug and a kiss. “Can you stay awhile?”

  “I got tonight and tomorrow off. Didn’t know you had company.”

  Maji gathered from his tone that Bubbles still didn’t bring friends home. Or maybe it was just disapproval—he couldn’t know how careful she’d been to ensure no one tailed her. “Well, I gotta scoot. One of these days we’ll all hang out, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Bubbles echoed, squeezing her husband as she looked up at him. “And you have to meet Rose, too.”

  “I’ll try, baby.” Rey kissed her by the ear, apparently unfazed by the stink eye he got for not agreeing outright. “You know I want to.”

  But, Maji thought, that could blow his cover. When Rose meets you, best she has no idea that you’re mixed up in the mission, too. Her respect for Rey rose another notch. And with it, a touch of envy. He could work undercover, come home to his wife, and manage to keep her safe. And happier than Maji had ever seen her. She looked away, almost embarrassed to intrude.

  Bubbles pushed away from Rey and shook her head. “You two are so alike. Can’t live with you, can’t shoot you.”

  “You missed another fabulous meal, courtesy of our private chef,” Tom said to Maji as she entered the living room.

  Rose looked up from her book. “I made them prep and clean up, promise. No spoiling the crew.” Barefoot, with her legs stretched nearly the length of the couch, Rose looked content.

  “Good.”

  “You’re glad you went, aren’t you.” Rose delivered the nonquestion with a pleased look, and Maji felt herself color. Damn Bubbles for being right—Rose did get to her. And she liked it.

  “Well, I’m going up,” Tom announced, rising and heading for the stairs. “Gotta get some rack time in before my watch.”

  Rose laid her book down and drew her long, tanned legs up on the cushions, leaving room for Maji to sit.

  Maji glanced at the armchair Tom had just vacated, then took the open spot on the couch. She draped an arm over the back of the plush cushions, making the cotton of her T-shirt stretch across her chest. Suddenly self-aware of her braless breasts outlined so clearly, she put her hand back down. It came to rest on Rose’s foot. “So, what’d you make? For dinner.”

  As Rose described the meal, Maji stroked her foot lightly, almost absentmindedly. Rose’s breath caught and Maji froze. “Sorry, I wasn’t—”

  “Censoring yourself?” Rose looked wryly sympathetic. “I never asked you to. So stop or go, but don’t tease me.” She lifted her foot and placed it in Maji’s lap.

  Maji looked at the foot, up the bare calf to Rose’s top and shorts, and finally at her face. It didn’t hold any recrimination, and no challenge. She wasn’t being played. What the fuck are you doing, Rios? “I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted, feeling as scared as she sounded.

  “Why should you? It’s a ridiculous situation, playing pretend every day.” Rose pressed her instep into the denim on Maji’s thigh and gave her a friendly nudge. “You should have a few minutes now and then to just be yourself. For sanity’s sake.”

  Maji exhaled and gave her a crooked grin, then started kneading Rose’s foot. “Who said I was sane?” She worked the tiny muscles under her fingers on autopilot. “I left my family and my friends, a nearly finished master’s degree, and a job offer from the UN. All because the Army convinced me that I could help people. Uniquely fucking qualified.”

  Rose blinked, looking like the profanity cut through the pleasure of the foot rub. “And did you? Help people?”

  Maji thought about the ops she’d worked, the dozens of individuals she had extracted from places and situations that would surely have killed them. She could remember all their faces, all their names. Right up until that last night in Fallujah. Her hands kept moving of their own accord. “Yes. I did.”

  “Because you can,” Rose said, with Hannah’s words but also, what? A tinge of sadness? Or understanding?

  Maji set Rose’s foot back across her lap and met her eyes. “Because I could.”

  “If you’re not sure you can anymore, you should talk to someone. Maybe Hannah?”

  Maji’s eyes prickled, and she looked down, noticed Rose’s other foot, and placed a hand on it. “I was counting on more time with Ava.” She shook her head to clear her fugue and gave Rose an apologetic half smile. “Other foot?”

  Rose gave her a teasing look, half sultry, half playful. “You make this one feel as good as the other one, and I’ll show you where I hid the last piece of tiramisu.”

  “You made tiramisu? From scratch?”

  Rose smiled again, eyes twinkling. “Baked the cake, brewed the espresso, whipped the mascarpone. I did not milk the cow, I admit. Don’t tell Martha Stewart.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Maji closed her eyes and waved her fork like a conductor. “You get tired of teaching, you could be a chef, you know.”

  Rose sipped a glass of red wine, shook her head, the smile in just her eyes. “Too much work, and takes all the fun out of cooking. I’d rather only feed people to show my love, like a good Italian mama.”

  Maji looked at her speculatively, no quip to keep the banter light. Rose blushed, and blinked. “Speaking of which, how’s Bubbles doing? I know Ava’s loss was hard on her, but I hate to bring it up at the dojo.”

  “Yeah. It’s been a rough ride for her and Hannah both. I wish I’d come home sooner.”

  “Well, you’re here now. You’ll be here when Bubbles needs Aunt Maji on hand, right?”

  Maji nearly dropped her fork. “What?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Bubbles said something about having to take a break from teaching when she gets pregnant. I got the impression they were trying. I may have misunderstood, of course.”

  Maji looked pensive, ran her fork around the plate and licked it clean. “No, I bet you’re right. It just didn’t come up.” Why? Because I’ll be gone again by then?

  “Do you think they’ll name it Maji,” Rose asked, “if it’s a girl?”

  Maji twisted around to look at her. “Why? Did she say something?”

  “No, sorry—I was joking. I get a little silly about babies. Seems like all my friends are having them.”

  Maji cocked her head. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?” Rose followed Maji’s gaze, wariness clouding her features.

  “I swore I heard a loud ticking.” Maji gave her an impish look. “Could it be a biological clock?”

  Rose straightened up on her kitchen stool, set her wineglass aside. “I’m not your girlfriend, remember? Let’s stick to safe ground, like Bubbles and Rey.” She slid smoothly off the stool, walked her wineglass to the dishwasher, then paused. “I forgot. Angelo asked me to tell you. See him in the morning. Something about Hannah contracting with a reporter. Does that sound right?”

  Maji’s face went blank. “No, it doesn’t. Are you sure?”

  Rose thought a second, brows drawn. “Maybe it was bringing that journalist on board. Could he mean the one you all got captured trying to rescue?”

  “Definitely not.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rose woke, not sure what had jarred her out of sleep. Crack! Swearing. Voices hissing, muffled but audible. Her heart began to race. Where was Maji? She hopped from the bed, crossed the space where she’d finally grown
accustomed to finding the bedroll and its occupant. She eased open the door, and listened. Arabic. Dammit! Ang and Maji arguing—at one a.m., no less.

  She tiptoed to the top of the steps and stopped there. If they wanted her to listen, they wouldn’t be using their private language. Then she heard English.

  “Why are we using Arabic? I’m fucking exhausted.” Angelo sounded on his last legs, indeed.

  “Because we’ve got civilians upstairs.”

  “Ma takes pills. She’d sleep through a nor’easter.”

  “Great. You carry her if we have to evacuate.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Seriously. Just calm the fuck down, sit, and talk to me, Rios.”

  Rose slid quietly down onto the top step.

  “You trying to kill me here, Ang? See if you can push me completely over the edge? Watch me snap?” The ragged edge in her voice made Rose hurt for her. “’Cause that went so well last time.”

  “You saved our lives. And…I know it cost you.”

  “You don’t know jack. Or you wouldn’t ask that…woman…here. After what she did.”

  “Iris didn’t kill Palmer.” Ang sounded more level, serious, and reasonable than she knew he could. “She didn’t do anything to us. Mashriki did it all—and we got him, right?”

  Maji was silent a few beats, then flat toned. “If she’d stuck to the plan, it wouldn’t have gone down like that.”

  “It wasn’t her plan. How was she supposed to know?” He paused. “All she ever cared about before was getting the story. That’s why we picked her.”

  Rose realized they must be speaking about Iris Fineman, the journalist.

  “So what makes you think she won’t screw us over again?”

  “Hannah.” Another pause, before Angelo continued. “She and Iris’s editor go way back. Hannah got him out of Serbia in ’92. He’ll keep Iris on script.”

  Maji’s controlled exhales filled the brief silence. “Your op, your call. But keep her the fuck away from me.”

  “Look, I get that you’re pissed—”

  The stairwell shuddered as something large thumped against it. “You don’t get anything. This isn’t Baku Bay, or Ciudad del Este, or Iran. I can’t be anybody you need me to be. This is home.” Rose heard the anger shred into raw pain. “This is where people know me, my family, my name.”

  “Aw, jeez.” Rose heard sobbing, muffled by what she guessed was Angelo holding Maji. There was shuffling, and a nose blown. Then Angelo’s words came, soft but firm. “Maji Rios, you and I have been downrange our whole lives. And so have our families and friends. They just don’t know it like we do.”

  “They used to know us, at least. Now we can’t even give them that.”

  “Babe, look at me. Please.” A brief pause. “Maybe they don’t know what we do,” Angelo said, “but the ones who count know who we are.”

  “Iris isn’t one of them.” A touch of bitterness gave Maji’s voice some of its strength back.

  “I hear you. I really do. But we absolutely need Fineman to pull this off. I’d explain why, but it’s better you know less. You’ll understand later, I promise.”

  Rose listened hard into the silence, then realized with a start that they were headed upstairs together. She stood and saw them looking up at her looking down at them.

  “We wake you up squabbling?” Angelo sounded neither angry nor embarrassed. Something in Maji’s face, however, hardened.

  “It’s okay,” Rose offered, trying not to look guilty. “I’ll see you in the morning. I promised Jackie waffles before her golf game.”

  When they reached the top, Rose moved to let Angelo pass by on his way to his room. Then Maji followed and went into Carlo’s room without a word to either of them. Well, Rose thought, she deserved a real bed. And some privacy for a change.

  Maji was already awake when Rose pushed the bedroom door open partway. The heavy drapes Carlo had liked kept the bright sun out, but couldn’t turn off her internal alarm clock.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m up.” She stretched under the sheet, propped herself up on both elbows, and inhaled deeply. “Coffee. Hallelujah.” Seeing Rose reach for the light switch, she blurted, “Don’t. Please.”

  “Are you hungover?” Rose asked, sounding incredulous.

  Maji shook her head, loose hair falling in her eyes. She squinted at the clock. “’Course not. I’m just not used to sleeping so long. My body’s confused.” And I bet I look like hell. She took the cup of coffee, rolling onto one elbow to free up the other hand.

  Rose slid onto the bed facing her, her back to the door. With her free hand, Rose reached out and tucked a loose swath of hair back behind Maji’s ear. “Sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

  There was no subtext that Maji could see in Rose’s eyes, which shone with their usual intelligence even in the dimness of the stuffy room. “What did you hear?”

  “Something about a reporter. Did you mean Iris Fineman?”

  Might as well be as honest as you can. “Yeah. Ang wants her help, I think it’s a bad idea. But it is his call.”

  Rose’s hand brushed Maji’s ear as she tucked another strand of hair behind it, then pulled back to rest on the bed between them. “Can I ask you something? And you can tell me to go away if I’m out of line.”

  Maji blew on the coffee, buying time. The discussions Rose initiated always felt intimate, and she should be pulling away, not helping her get closer. Fuck it. “Go ahead.”

  “Back when you gave me that I am not your girlfriend lecture, you said that if we broke the rules, there would be casualties.”

  “Good recall. And?”

  “Were you her bodyguard?”

  Oh. Huh. “No. I was assigned as her interpreter. Free to fraternize, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Rose blushed, but didn’t look away. “Even under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?”

  “A forward operating base is a small town. Lots of people breaking rules, lots of looking the other way.” Maji didn’t add that her team wasn’t stationed at the base and didn’t answer to the chain of command there. “Still, the guys were worried she might try to out me.”

  “Why?”

  “She was against the war, against US policy. She’s a Canadian. We argued a lot.”

  Rose looked unconvinced. “But that’s not why you’re so angry. She did something.”

  Maji looked past Rose, fixing her eyes on a point on the wall. She weighed what she could say, and could not. “Fineman was supposed to go into the camp to interview refugees, under our escort. Those were the terms of her embedment agreement.” Well, that much was true. The rest was off the record, but not actually classified. “The night before the scheduled visit, she slipped off base without us, to go in alone. Well, with a local driver as interpreter. They killed him right off.”

  “Oh God. Why wasn’t that in the news?”

  “Because we weren’t authorized to go in after her.” Not on paper, anyway. None of their missions came with a paper trail. “Hostage rescue isn’t really a Civil Affairs thing. But it takes a while to mobilize strike teams, and we couldn’t just wait while Mashriki held her, knowing what he did to most hostages.”

  Rose gave a little shudder. “Of course you couldn’t. But I’m so sorry you lost your friend. No wonder it’s hard to trust a civilian to behave.”

  Maji reached out and put her hand on Rose’s. “You’d never put Ang in danger, not on purpose.”

  “Or you,” Rose replied, turning her hand to match Maji’s and lacing their fingers together. “I’m sorry for suggesting you might be using the rules to let me down easy.”

  Maji laughed, incredulous. “Seriously? That would even be in your head? You really underestimate yourself.”

  “Thank you. I didn’t so much, before Gayle. It was a bad breakup, but overdue.”

  Maji hesitated to ask. “Was she cheating on you?” Hard to imagine, but then, some people were idiots.

  “Nothing that dramatic. Or s
imple,” Rose conceded. “More like death by a thousand cuts. Insidious, corrosive.”

  Maji worked to keep her voice calm. “Abuse?”

  “Not like that.” Rose’s eyes dropped to their entwined hands. “I’m not sure I can explain.”

  “You don’t have to.” Maji rubbed her thumb on the back of Rose’s hand.

  Rose looked up. “But I want to. It might help me figure out how I got there.”

  Maji waited, not prompting, just being available. She gave Rose the barest hint of a smile.

  “Gayle is gorgeous. There’s no picture of her in my file, is there?”

  “No.” The only gorgeous one in there is you, and you don’t seem to know it.

  “Well, take my word for it. She’s always very styled, dressed like a rich artist—she teaches art history. I was really flattered when she asked me out.” Rose’s eyes lifted to the wall beyond Maji and focused on something far away. “And before she moved in—long story—she was very supportive, very complimentary. But then the suggestions started. Here, doesn’t that look better? Oh, not that color, really? You look so much better in red. And so on. It just inched down this slope, and I hardly noticed. Then one day I realized that I’d stopped being at ease with her, ever. Everything had to be her way, which means fancy—food, clothes, cars, furniture, you name it. She passed herself off as a connoisseur, and at first I liked that, admired it even. But eventually I realized she just didn’t know how to be happy with any simple, good thing. Not a homegrown tomato, not a nice meal of leftovers, not me without makeup.”

  Maji shook her head. “Then she’s an idiot. A pretentious idiot.”

  “Thank you. It took me a long time to realize that, though. Finally, one day, I asked myself, who watches their girlfriend come out of the shower, drop her towel, and give her the Look, and then has the gall to say, Wouldn’t you like to put on that teddy I bought you? You look so nice in it.”

  That movie clip ran through Maji’s mind, with herself in a supporting role and a very different ending. She blinked, at a loss for words that wouldn’t put her way over the line. “Um,” she tried, then gave up. Swallowing hard, she handed the mug to Rose and slipped out from under the covers, onto the floor with a graceless thump.