“No, it’s not,” he said. “Tom could use someone as . . . capable as you. There, see? That’s a good word. I can do this.”
Was it possible that he wanted to work with her, that he wanted her around?
Decker pushed the envelope with the check back over to her. “Take the interview, take the job, and take this as a loan. You can pay me back when you’re able.”
“With interest,” she said.
“Fair enough.” He pushed his chair out, opened his wallet, and put some bills on the table. “I’m sorry to run, but I have to catch a flight.”
“Thank you again.” Sophia held out her hand, and he only hesitated slightly before taking it. Fastest handshake in the West . . .
“I’ll see you back in the States,” Decker said. He gave her one last smile, and then he was gone.
Sophia sat and sipped her wine, thinking about how much Dimitri would have liked Lawrence Decker.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
It was weird being back.
San Diego still looked like . . . San Diego. The land of eternal non-seasonal sameness.
And the office of Troubleshooters Inc. still looked like it needed a serious overhaul by Thom from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Damn, what a dump.
Jimmy walked in, feeling exceptionally nervous.
He hadn’t seen Tess since the flight home two days ago. And before that, there’d been no time to talk. In fact, because of all of the debriefings and meetings and official business, they hadn’t said more than a few words in private since that last conversation in Bashir’s palace.
She’d been mysteriously absent last night. He’d expected her to be on the flight into San Diego, but she wasn’t. And she didn’t—or wouldn’t—answer her cell phone.
This morning, though, he was going to see her. She had to be here—they were having the very last of the debriefings.
There was a man who had the look of a Navy SEAL sitting at the front desk—tall and muscular, with a military-short haircut and pale eyes that made Jimmy think of a Siberian husky. He had one of those faces that looked as if it might crack if he smiled. And sure enough, he didn’t smile as Jimmy approached. He just waited.
“I’m here for the meeting,” Jimmy told him.
“Inside.”
The door opened behind him, and he turned to see Tess coming in. She was carrying a tray of Starbucks coffees, and Dave was beside her. She was laughing at whatever he had said, and didn’t see Jimmy. At first.
“James,” Dave greeted him. It seemed the jeans and rock-and-roll T-shirts weren’t just part of his disguise for travel to K-stan, but instead his whole new fashion statement. Today he was a walking advertisement for the Ramones.
Jimmy let himself look at Tess, and his heart actually skipped a beat as she met his gaze. “Hi.”
Her smile dimmed a few watts. “Hey. I didn’t expect to see you today.”
She didn’t? “Why not?”
She took the tray over to Dog-eye Man and gave him one of the coffees and a far sunnier smile than she’d given to Jimmy.
“Extra sugar, extra cream,” she said.
“Thanks,” Fido said, and smiled back at her.
His face didn’t crack. Far from it, in fact. When he smiled, the fucker looked like he belonged in the pages of a magazine.
“Have you met Cosmo?” Tess asked Jimmy.
Cosmo. God damn. Her hand was on freaking Cosmo’s freaking extra-broad shoulder.
“No, I haven’t.” Jimmy forced a smile. Held out his hand as Tess introduced them.
“Diego Nash, Cosmo Richter. Cosmo’s a chief with SEAL Team Sixteen.”
Of course he was.
Richter’s grip was firm and dry. He nodded, because speaking more than a single word was obviously just too taxing.
“Nice to meet you,” Jimmy lied. He turned his attention to Tess. “Why didn’t you think I’d be here?”
“This is a planning meeting as well as a debrief. You said—”
With another big smile at Cosmo, Jimmy pulled Tess back down the hall. “Forget what I said. Where’ve you been?”
She blinked at him. “I came out here early, to see my mother in San Francisco, but . . . Forget which part of what you said?”
“It’s crazy, I know,” Jimmy said, “but when you didn’t call me back, I got scared that you, I don’t know, went to Mexico or something.”
Tess didn’t laugh. She was silent, just looking up at him.
That was when he stopped being nervous and got good and scared. “You, um, planning any trips to Mexico?”
“Do you really want to keep seeing me?” she asked. “Because I was going to play our . . . time together like it was just a fling. You know, the assignment ended, so thanks, that was fun, see you around.”
“So . . . what are you saying?” he said. “You’re moving on to Cosmo Richter?”
She laughed. And then stopped, no doubt when she saw his face. “Are you actually jealous?”
“Shit, yeah.”
Her eyes were wide. “Really?”
He couldn’t bring himself to hold her gaze. “Yes.” God, he was pathetic. “Is that so hard to believe?”
She just stood there looking at him, arms folded, one hand up over her mouth.
That was when Dave poked his head out of the conference room. “Excuse me, we, uh, need to start? We’ve got Murphy online from Germany, via digital cam. He’s under doctor’s orders not to talk too long, so . . .”
“Thanks,” Tess said. “We better . . .” She gestured toward the door, forcing a smile that turned real as she went into the room and caught sight of Murphy on the video monitor. “Hey, Murphy, how’s the leg?”
“Much better, thanks.”
“I can’t believe it’s been only three days since we got back,” Tess said, sitting at the big table between Decker and Tom Paoletti. She’d already set up her laptop, and her jacket was on the back of her chair. “It feels more like three months.”
“That tends to happen,” Dave told her.
There were people in the room that Jimmy didn’t recognize. Still, it was clear from just the way they sat that they were more of Tom’s operators—even before the former SEAL rattled off introductions.
Jimmy took a seat along the wall, near the door, even though there were still empty ones at the table. Decker gave him a nod but didn’t ask him to move closer. He knew that meetings like this gave Jimmy a rash.
Even Cosmo Richter came in and sat down. Next to Jimmy. Of course.
They went through the entire mission, picking it apart. What worked. What didn’t work.
“Sat-com radios,” Tess kept saying. “Next time we need to make sure we pack enough sat-com radios.”
Tom Paoletti finally turned to him. “You haven’t said anything, Nash. Any suggestions for a smoother mission?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Stay the hell out of Kazbekistan.”
Everyone laughed. Except Cosmo Richter, who merely smiled. Obviously it took too much effort to laugh.
“I actually do have some questions,” Jimmy told Tom. “For you, and for Deck, too. Maybe we can talk after the meeting’s over.”
“Good,” Tom fired back at him. “Because I wanted to talk to you—about the possibility of your taking a team leader position.” He turned to the video monitor. “You, too, Murph. After you’re back, we’ll talk, okay?”
“With utmost respect, sir,” Dave said, “stay away from me. You can’t pay me enough to make me a team leader.”
Again, everyone laughed—everyone but Jimmy this time. He heard the words, the conversation continuing on around him as they all said their good-byes to Murphy, as the connection was cut.
Tom was talking to the entire group now about some kind of meeting next Wednesday morning—a chance to meet his second in command, a former Navy sharpshooter and FBI agent, Alyssa Locke.
Jimmy didn’t listen. He couldn’t listen. He’d been knocked out of his chair. Oh, he looked as if he were stil
l sitting there, but in reality, he was on the floor with Tom Paoletti’s almost casual invitation to be one of his team leaders lying like a cinder block on his chest.
Everyone was talking—there were lots of individual conversations now. Plans for the weekend, the best way to fill out the expense reports in order to be reimbursed for incidental items, hey, anyone want to go grab some lunch?
Jimmy was still speechless. Tess was silent, too. She was just sitting there, gazing at him, everything she was thinking and feeling right there in her eyes, for the entire world to see.
“You okay?”
Jimmy looked up to see that Decker had come to stand beside him.
“Yeah,” he said, but then corrected himself. “No! I came here today to—” He laughed. “I didn’t expect him—Tom—to . . .”
The head of Troubleshooters, Incorporated was getting ready to leave the room.
“Excuse me, sir.” Jimmy stood up, blocking Tom’s route to the door. “I’m honored that you would want me to, um . . .” He laughed. “Actually, I’m totally blown away. I’m—” He had to clear his throat. “Thank you, sir. Thank you, but no, thank you. I appreciate your confidence in me, honestly, I . . . It means a lot. It does, and thank you, but Decker and I are a team.” He glanced at Deck, who had come to stand beside him. “And as long as he wants me, I’m going to be his XO. I, um, didn’t want to let you think there was actually a chance I might become a team leader. I know you’re actively recruiting, and . . . There’s no chance of me . . . No. Thank you.”
Tom nodded, looking from him to Decker and back. “I appreciate your letting me know.” He held out his hand for Jimmy to shake.
Jimmy met Tess’s gaze again. She’d misted up, and she wasn’t even trying to hide it.
As Tom went out the door, Decker shook Jimmy’s hand, too. “I’m glad you decided to stay,” he said.
“Me, too,” Jimmy admitted. Figures Deck would know that he’d been thinking about leaving. He pulled his gaze away from Tess and looked into his friend’s eyes. “I hope I, um, never give you cause to regret that.”
Decker hugged him. God, no, not in front of the Navy SEAL—
But Cosmo was gone—back to his job at the reception desk, which, come to think of it, was far more embarrassing than any manly embrace could ever be, especially one with plenty of back slapping.
“I just won you about a hundred extra bonus points with that hug,” Decker whispered as he gave Jimmy one last slap on the back. He gestured to Tess with his head. “Look at how she looks at you. You’d have to be a real master to fuck this one up.” He looked at Jimmy hard. “Don’t fuck this up.”
And with those words of comfort—at least Jimmy thought they were meant to be comforting—Deck left the room, closing the door tightly behind him.
Tess pushed her chair back from the table and stood, as if she’d just realized they were alone in this room together. She focused all of her attention on packing up her laptop and zipping the case closed. “Are you going to have lunch with Dave?” she asked without looking up.
“Marry me,” Jimmy said.
She looked up. In fact, she stared at him, her mouth slightly open.
“This wasn’t a fling,” he told her. “What we had. What we have. If it was just a fling, you wouldn’t care what I said to Tom or to Deck or . . . You wouldn’t care. And you definitely care. I can see that you care.”
She laughed. “There you go again, deciding what it is that I feel.”
“You love me. I’m not deciding, I’m reporting what I see. I see you looking at me as if—”
“This isn’t because of . . . Jimmy, I got my period yesterday.”
“This has nothing to do with that.”
“So you’ve just . . . randomly gone insane.”
Jimmy laughed. “Yeah, I guess. It feels a little like that.” He cleared his throat. “Love has often been compared to insanity.”
She pretended to organize the pile of papers that was still on the table, putting them neatly into a stack. Finally she looked at him again. “You think you love me.”
He met her gaze. “I know I do. And you love me, so . . .”
But Tess shook her head. “You’re a player,” she said. “I would have to be crazy to marry you. You don’t know the meaning of the word fidelity.”
“Yes,” he said, refusing to be offended. He didn’t blame her for thinking that. “I do. It’s all about giving your word, about making promises and then keeping them. I don’t break promises, Tess. I’ve just never given any like this before.”
She was silent.
“There’s a lot that’s wrong with me. I’m a mess—I’m the first to admit that. But I promise to be faithful. I promise I’ll never intentionally hurt you,” he said. “I can’t promise I’ll ever be able to tell you much about”—he cleared his throat—“Jimmy Santucci, but, see, I was hoping it would be okay with you if we focused on the future instead of the past.” He took her hand, needing to touch her. “I love you, and if you really are crazy enough to love me—”
“I do,” she said. “I am.” But then she pulled away. She stood up. Took several steps away from him. Turned back. “I never expected this.”
He answered her honestly. “I didn’t either. I never thought . . .”
“What if you change your mind?”
“I won’t,” he said.
“But what if you do?”
Jimmy shook his head, unable to give her the answer she wanted. “Why would I change my mind,” he asked instead, “when being with you is . . .” He cleared his throat again. “Rumor has it I’m a good person. When I’m with you, I can almost believe it.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Oh, God, Jimmy, I can’t just marry you. How can I just . . . ? I’m not that crazy.” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, my God, maybe I am that crazy.”
Victory. The relief that filled him made his knees weak. Jimmy pushed himself to his feet, ready to move in for the kill.
But she held up her hands as if to keep him at arm’s length. “Can’t we start with dinner? Wouldn’t it be smart to date for a while, to take it slowly, before—”
“Absolutely,” he said.
That made her pause. “Really?”
“I want you in my life,” Jimmy told her. “You want to take this slowly, well, okay. We’ll take it nice and slow.”
He smiled then, and Tess laughed, because she surely knew exactly what he was thinking.
“You think all you have to do is kiss me,” she accused him, “and—”
Jimmy kissed her.
And she didn’t stand a chance.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be obtained from the publisher upon request.
eISBN 0-345-47216-0
v1.0
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For Ed and Eric and all the laughter that’s yet to come
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Troubleshooters 08 Flashpoint Page 46
