I'll Be Waiting (The Vault Book 2)

by A. M. Hargrove

  “Yeah, all except for one glaring detail,” Jackson said.

  “What’s that?” I asked her.

  “Drummond is nothing but a tiny blip on the radar compared to Virginia Beach, which is a huge tourist area.”

  “True, but with that comes a ton of competition. You have none here. Zero. But what you do have is opportunity.”

  “Rusty has a point, Jackson.”

  “Just you two keep your fingers crossed and I’m going to take it one day at a time.”

  “Hey, did you put that order in for the new sign yet?” Lee asked.

  “Yeah, and they’re coming up with some designs for me to look at. They said they’d have something in the next couple of days.”

  Lee clapped her hands. “Promise you’ll email them so I can see.”

  “Of course. Which reminds me, you guys should get out of here.”

  “But what about lunch?” Lee asked.

  “We were planning on leaving after that,” I said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I can handle that. You guys go and Lee, I’ll see you in a few days.”

  Lee grabbed my hand and off we went. We had to stop at her place in order for her to pack a bag, and then she followed me back to Virginia Beach. The drive was right under an hour, and we talked on our phones the entire trip since she followed behind me in her car. She told me I was a manly man driving my big truck. I told her my big truck didn’t make me manly. It was the beast in my pants that did it.

  “I’m shocked and hurt you’ve already forgotten about him.”

  “I didn’t say I’d forgotten about him. How could I? He visited me last night.”

  “Maybe we need to pull over so he can visit you again.” The mere thought had the beast getting hard.

  “Haha. Is your beast getting anxious?”

  “He’s not my beast, he’s yours. When you’re not around, he’s nothing but a harmless pussycat.”

  I heard her giggling into the phone. “I can’t believe you admitted that.”

  “Hey, honest and tell it like it is.”

  “Yeah, but not that.”

  “I’m comfortable in my manhood.” And I was. “It took years of therapy but I’m there now.”

  “Will you ever give me the details?” she asked.

  “You already know the basics.”

  “But I want to know everything.”

  “No, you don’t. It’s an ugly messy story that I don’t want to taint your beautiful mind with.”

  “I have scars, too, you know.”

  “Yes, but yours are from an act of heroism, not from a sadistic father.”

  Her voice softened. “I wish I was sitting next to you right now.”

  “I always wish you were sitting next to me.”

  We arrived at my apartment and I carried our bags inside. My place was small—a one bedroom, which suited me fine. I hoped she didn’t think it was lame.

  “The bedroom is back there, along with the bathroom.”

  “This is really nice,” she said. “You’re so organized.”

  “Military life teaches you to be.”

  “I liked that part of it.”

  “Same here. I was thinking. I don’t have anything in here as far as food goes. How about we do a store run and then we can decide if we want to eat in or go out.”

  “I know exactly what I want to do,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “I want to eat Rusty’s Rockin’ Ribs.”

  “Right. You are going to make me work, aren’t you?”

  “Yep. And then I want to feel the beast.”

  “You do, huh?”

  She nodded, and her eyes went straight to my crotch. That wasn’t good. “I have a feeling the beast will be unleashed before you are served those Rockin’ Ribs, as you’re calling them.”

  “If that’s the case, we’d better get a move on and we also better get some snack foods so I can keep up my strength.”

  “Sure thing. I don’t want my woman to get weak from hunger.”

  At the grocery store, we stocked up on snacks, beverages, and I even bought a couple bottles of wine for Lee. She mentioned she liked it, so I figured I might impress her. I wasn’t much of a drinker, only a few beers here and there, all on account of my parents. But that wasn’t any reason for her not to enjoy a nice glass of the Chardonnay she’d mentioned she’d liked.

  I had to get a move on to get the ribs going since they had to cook for a few hours. I went to work on them and she took care of the other stuff.

  Once the ribs were going, I had the idea that we could get a little bedroom time. As we were kissing, my phone went off.

  “Do you need to get that?” she asked.

  “No, ignore it.” And we went back to kissing. I was about to remove her top when the phone went off again. I pushed it away and continued to take her shirt off. But this time, the phone didn’t stop. As soon as it went to my voicemail, it would start ringing again.

  “Dammit, something must be up. I’m gonna have to take this.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Garrett.”

  “Garrett, Thompson here. I hate to do this to you, man. But I need you to report in. I know your leave isn’t up for three more days, but I’m short two men. We have two down with some stomach bug and they can’t travel for three days. Doctor’s orders. I need you in first thing in the morning. Wheels are up at eight.”

  “No way.”

  “I know, and I wouldn’t call you unless it was an emergency. We’re not on secure lines so I can’t let you know the circumstances. But just be here at seven sharp.”

  “Yes, sir. How long?”

  “Four, five at the most.”

  “Right. See you at seven.”

  “Thanks, Garrett.”

  “Dammit. I should’ve known better than to answer that.”

  “What?”

  I have to report in at seven. I’m going on a mission and have to be gone four or five days.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Will you promise me something?”

  “Anything.”

  “Will you be here for me when I get back?”

  She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close. “You go and do your duty, and know that while you’re gone, I’ll be waiting. Always.”

  I touched my lips to her warm plump ones and my heart was at peace, knowing she’d be here for me … waiting, just like her great-granddad had done all those years ago.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lee

  * * *

  “What are you doing back here?” Jackson asked. As soon as I explained, her arms were hugging me.

  “I’m so worried. Those aren’t your everyday missions they go on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s a Seal, remember?” I reminded her.

  “Shit. I wasn’t thinking. But Seals have stellar skills, right? I mean they’re trained to be the best of the best, right?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Then he’s golden.” She held her hands out.

  “Okay, wow … he’s got nothing to worry about like no IED’s or anything at all.”

  “Double shit. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay, you’re only trying to help.”

  “Don’t they give them super special equipment and stuff?”

  “I don’t really know what they give them. All I know is they are heads above any other soldier. They practically torture the dudes in training and most don’t make it a quarter of the way through. You have to have balls of steel to become a Seal.”

  Jackson grabbed my hands. “See. He’ll be fine. And this isn’t his first rodeo.”

  I gave hers a squeeze and said, “I hope you’re right. I really do.”

  “Lee, if it were you on that mission, what would you want Rusty to do?”

  “I’d want him to live his life, and not worry excessively about me.”

  “Exactly.”

  I pondered my situation for a sec
ond, then said, “Well then, put me to work so I can get my mind off this.”

  She saluted me and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “That would be ma’am.”

  She fake punched my shoulder and gave me a dose of chores to do. Then when I finished, she called me over to her laptop.

  “Which is your favorite?”

  She was looking at a series of new signs for the shop.

  “Ooh, I love this one.” I pointed to the one on the bottom. It had a train faded in the background and in contemporary script was written in black I’ll Be Waiting. Centered beneath it in smaller but old-fashioned font in black too was The Depot Cafe. “This one is so cool. It represents everything. What do you think?”

  “That was my favorite too. I was hoping it was yours.”

  “Are you going to place the order?”

  “You know it. I want it up as soon as possible.”

  “Did they give you a timeframe?”

  “They said they could have it ready in less than a week.”

  I was every bit as excited as Jackson about this.

  “Any word about the article?” I asked.

  Jackson snapped her fingers. “Mr. Ammons called and said he would run it whenever we wanted. We need to have it coincide with the new name of the café.”

  “Yes. Maybe you should give him a call and let him know.”

  “I will. He also said he found some old pictures of your great-grandfather. He’s bringing them over tomorrow with a few copies of the paper.”

  My eyes practically bugged out. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not. He was really happy about them too.”

  “I wasn’t sure …” I stared off into the distance, but then I said, “I have to call Glenn. He needs to hear this.” When I did, he was yelling so loud I held the phone away from my ear and even Jackson heard him.

  She hollered out, “Dude, you the man!”

  “Dang right I am,” he shouted back.

  I ended the call and told her he was going to be talking himself up something big. “Mom and Dad will have their hands full with him.”

  “He’s a great kid though. Nothing like us.”

  “He hasn’t hit that age yet. Just wait.”

  That night, as I tried to sleep, I thought about where in the world Rusty might be. Electricity crawled across my nerves as worry fired them to life. I never got a chance to ask him about when we could communicate. Everything about this trip was so sudden, it made me question whether or not I was ready for this type of a relationship. Even though I had been a marine and was familiar with that life, there were stark differences between what I had done and what he was doing. The danger he faced was on a much greater level than I ever had. But then I thought about how my great-granddad left for the war to fight for our freedom only to return home to an empty house. I wouldn’t let that happen to Rusty. He went on these missions to save people at a great cost to himself. I would certainly wait for him. My heart cracked every time I thought of the pain he endured as a child growing up in that loveless home. My family was loving and caring, and my mind couldn’t wrap itself around the horrors he had faced. How proud his parents should’ve been of him, instead of beating and mentally abusing him.

  Piecing together what little bit I knew of his past, I made a hasty decision. My laptop was across the room on the desk, so I hopped over to it and got back in bed. At first, I felt like I was invading Rusty’s privacy and maybe I was. He did tell me to google him. I never did. And I had this pressing need to know more about him, to find out what I could. So without any further hesitation, I typed in his full name, Ruston James Garret.

  I hadn’t expected the page to fill up with entry after entry of nothing but information on the man, Ruston Garrett, the criminal. I had no idea that Rusty was named after his father. What a terrible reminder to have that moniker.

  When I began reading, I was stunned. The charges against this man were terrible, but then when I saw Midnight Drake’s name linked, I clicked over and read all the articles about her. That’s when I first saw Rusty’s name and his testimony against his father.

  I stopped reading so many times because my eyes were blurred with tears. What Midnight endured was beyond comprehension. My heart and gut ached for her. I wasn’t sure how she made it through that carnage of a life to become who she is today. From all accounts, she was an amazing survivor.

  And Rusty … my god, reading about how he felt responsible for what was happening to her when he was only a young boy. The emotions that played out in the courtroom must’ve been off the charts. How I wish I had been there to help him. My heart was almost punching through my ribcage as it beat like mad.

  Oh, Rusty. I wish I could’ve been there to help you get through all that.

  And then my brain bounced to how it must’ve been for him growing up in a house without any affection from his mom. He said she was drunk all the time, most likely trying to avoid his dad. He never was shown any love at all. How did he manage? And more to the point, how did he end up normal?

  He’d talked about the therapy he’d gone through. I wondered if he still goes. Shame washed over me briefly. I remembered my therapy sessions with my shrink and how I thought I didn’t need them … that I was stronger than that. Rusty was probably much bigger of a person than I and realized in order to deal with the emotional upheaval of his youth, he’d need the help. I was too hard-headed at first.

  By the time I closed my laptop, it was after two in the morning. Six thirty would be here all too soon. I was going to be worthless the next day. But as I was falling asleep, I vowed to be the best girl Rusty had ever known and that I would show him love like he’d never seen it. Love. Where the hell did that come from?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Rusty

  * * *

  “Fuck. How the hell did we find ourselves in another FUBAR?” Wilson yelled.

  “No idea. Just keep going.” I yelled back. This was supposed to be another fast mover. We’d been dropped in at darkness from a bird in the middle of Iran. Not my favorite place. Too much shit happening here for my tastes. We were supposed to pull out one man—a very important man who had very important information. But that target had too many other people who wanted him as much as we did. That’s how we found ourselves in the crossfire between the Irani’s and the rest of the motherfucking world—or so it seemed.

  Now we were hoofing it to our supposed pick up point. Only that hadn’t worked out quite like we’d planned. Our bird took a damn hit and we lost her. No survivors either. We ran to the crash and rigged it with C4 just to make sure the enemy couldn’t retrieve any vital information from the craft. Then we were off again. The looming question was—to where?

  “Any ideas of our final destination?” Wilson asked.

  “Waiting to hear,” Thompson replied. I did know one thing. We needed the fuck out of this country. We’d dropped outside of a small town called Darkhovin, which was the site of a nuclear facility. Our contact was supposed to provide us vital information regarding that site and its role in Iran’s nuclear arms program. Then shit went south.

  “We need to get to Basra, or over the border at the very least. We’re not that far. Iraq is what? Seventy kilos?” I asked.

  “About a hundred, give or take,” Shelton, another one of our group answered.

  “We’re headed that way. At least we don’t have any damn mountains to navigate,” Thompson said.

  And wasn’t that the truth. Our asset wasn’t exactly in prime physical condition. He was elderly and didn’t appear to be up to a one hundred kilo jaunt by any means. We’d be piggybacking him by the end of the night if I were a guessing guy.

  “But the bad part is we don’t have much cover either. We’re gonna need some means of transportation if we’re to do this,” someone said.

  “Oh, you don’t think we can escape an entire regiment of Irani police?” I asked, sarcasm coating my words.

  “I’m going to disregard that comment, Garr
ett,” Thompson said.

  “Yes, sir.” We were good and truly fucked if we didn’t come up with something and fast. Then the little old guy we’d come to heist spoke up.

  “Excuse me. I can help.”

  “What did you say?” Thompson was the one who asked but all of us whipped around to stare at him. He was a small guy, short in stature and there wasn’t much to him in the form of muscle. A good strong wind could knock him on his tiny ass.

  “I said, I help you find vehicle. For you to escape.”

  “Where? The vehicle,” Wilson prodded.

  An arm, not much larger than an adolescent’s, pointed to a building across the road. “There.” He wore the traditional dishdasha, or long tunic, with loose fitting trousers underneath, and his head bore a keffiyeh held in place by an agal. The dishdasha was old and worn so it was easy to see his arms through it.

  “It has to be large enough to fit all of us,” Thompson told him.

  “Yes. Is large. A … uh, what you call. Truck.”

  Thompson edged his way closer to the man. “And this truck runs okay?”

  “Yes. Is good.”

  Using two fingers, Thompson pointed to two men. “You two, go now. Check it out. If it’s good, we’re dust in the wind.”

  “Copy that, Captain.”

  We waited in silence, almost afraid to say or think anything, until Thompson’s radio crackled to life. “Rover to base. We have a live wire. On the move. Over.”

  “Copy that Rover. Herd will be ready for the cattle drive. Over.”

  “Copy that base. Meet you at the trough.”

  There was an unused fountain in the back of the building we were holed up in, so we filed toward it, waiting for our wheels to show up. When they did, we would’ve laughed if they weren’t our ticket to paradise. The best way to describe it was a rust bucket with an active engine in it. The front bumper dangled by a thread, but by God, we all fit.

  “Go, go,” one of the men yelled as soon as we were all on board. I was the navigator, as usual, and plotted our course to freedom. Basra was only about ten miles on the other side of the border so if we could make it that far, we could always ditch the jalopy and walk the rest of the way.