Armed Response

by Janie Crouch

  He nodded. “Yeah. For almost a year now. I loved the army, but it was time.”

  “Moving back to Tulsa?”

  “No. Nothing for me there anymore. I actually bought some land here in Colorado. I’m opening a ranch of sorts.”

  Her brown eyes got big. “A ranch? I didn’t know you had any interest in animals.”

  “I didn’t, really, not when you knew me before. Not that there was much space for animals in downtown Tulsa anyway. But we had bomb dogs when I served over in the Middle East. Really found I had a love for them. So I’ll be raising them and some other animals. Working with vets, too.”

  Hopefully providing people with PTSD a place to come and heal for a little while when things got to be too much.

  “That sounds amazing. I’m glad your experience in the military was a good one.”

  “You would’ve done well in the military, too.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Lillian should’ve gone into the military with him. That had been their plan. The military had catered to both of their strengths.

  Now she really wouldn’t look at him. “Yeah. I always thought so.”

  He had to decide right now whether to battle this out—what had happened between her and his brother—or leave it alone. He didn’t want to fight with her the entire time he was here—that would be counterproductive to his ultimate mission of getting closer to her—but he didn’t want to leave Daryl as the elephant constantly in the room between them.

  He leaned in just slightly closer to her. “Twelve years was a long time ago. I think it’s safe to let bygones be bygones, right?”

  Now her brown eyes peered up at him. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s true.”

  “And if it means anything, I’m sorry Daryl passed away so soon after the two of you got together. I don’t know if it would’ve lasted or whatever, but I’m sorry you didn’t get the chance to find out.”

  Jace had never seen the blood drain from someone’s face so quickly. Lillian’s slight weight fell back more heavily against her car. Jace couldn’t help himself. He reached toward her. “Are you okay?”

  Did the thought of Daryl’s death still hit her so hard?

  “Daryl and I would never have made it as a couple.” Her laugh was bitter. “If there’s one thing I’m sure about, that’s it.”

  She pushed herself away from the car and he could almost see her withdraw into herself. Part of him wanted to press, but on the other hand, he really did not want to know intimate details about her relationship with his brother.

  She turned and reached for the car door, opening it. Jace took a step closer, boxing her in.

  They both felt it. The attraction between them. Daryl or not, it was still there. It had been buzzing around them all day, and now it was pooling in the air between them.

  It didn’t matter about twelve years, it didn’t matter about Daryl, it didn’t matter that they didn’t know enough about each other now to be sure if they even liked each other.

  The heat was still there, just like it had always been.

  “You need to talk to Ren,” she finally said, her back to him.

  With his hand on the frame of her door and the other on the roof of her car, she was, in essence, trapped in his arms. If she turned around, it would almost be like in an embrace.

  But she didn’t turn as she continued. “Tell Ren this won’t work. Help him find someone else.”

  “Why do I make you so uncomfortable, Tiger Lily? You’re the one who gave me up, remember? And like we said, it was over a decade ago. It shouldn’t matter now.”

  She shook her head with a little jerk. “It’ll be easier for both of us if you’re not here.”

  “Since when have you or I ever done anything the easy way? We are a good team. You had to have seen that out there today.”

  She nodded stiffly. Jace took a step forward, which caused Lillian to turn around. Suddenly all he could see was her mouth.

  Cursing himself, he brought his lips down to hers. He couldn’t help himself, it was like being caught in some tractor beam from a science fiction movie.

  Her lips were as soft as he remembered. As sweet. Sweeter, if possible.

  She held herself stiffly for the first few seconds, as he teased her lips slowly, nibbling at them, but then he felt her give in. She sighed as if she couldn’t fight it, either.

  Her fingers slid into his hair, pulling him closer, and a sound of hunger left him, his mouth moving more hungrily on hers, their tongues twining. The attraction and heat pushed at them in waves.

  When Jace finally stepped back, they both just stared at each other. Then, without another word, Lily got in her car and started it, pulling away so quickly that if he hadn’t stepped back she might’ve run over his toes. All he could do was watch her drive away.

  He muttered a curse under his breath. He’d been sent here to do a job, get more info, find out if Lillian had anything to do with this mole. Not kiss her senseless within the first few hours of his being back in the same general vicinity as her.

  He’d counted on his sense of betrayal to help him keep his distance from her. To be able to remain objective and even cold.

  Jace should’ve known better. He’d been many things around Lillian Muir, but cold was never one of them.

  Seven hours into this mission and already things had become a hell of a lot more complicated.

  Chapter Five

  Showing up at Omega HQ the next day knowing Jace would be part of the team, part of her inner circle after twelve years of not having seen him at all, was pretty much inconceivable to Lillian.

  And the fact that they’d made out yesterday? She couldn’t even wrap her head around that. She didn’t make out with people. Making out was for teenagers.

  And she especially didn’t make out in the Damn. Parking. Lot. Sure, the entire team had left by then, but still. What would people say if someone had seen her lip-locked with the new guy just a few hours after meeting him?

  After the Tiger Lily comment, plus the fact that she’d mentioned it to Roman, everyone had heard or figured out she and Jace had a history. But that still didn’t account for her sucking face with him.

  And hell if heat didn’t course through her at that thought. Again. Like it had done all night long.

  Lillian had a lot of sleepless nights. But never had they involved being so caught up thinking about a kiss that she couldn’t get to sleep. It was like something out of a Sweet Valley High novel.

  She wished she could call Grace about it. Get her opinion as both psychiatrist and woman. Although she knew what Grace would tell her.

  To take a chance. To be willing to leave herself unguarded for once.

  But Lillian couldn’t call Grace. Because Freihof had killed her.

  That was enough to wipe all thoughts of teen-romance-books-style kisses out of her mind. Jace was here for a purpose. That purpose had nothing to do with Lillian and everything to do with keeping the LESS Summit safe, especially if Freihof decided to make some sort of play.

  She would do well to remember that.

  Jace Eakin was now, at least temporarily, taking up residence in her home—Omega HQ was much more home than the one-bedroom apartment that basically just housed her stuff. She would work with him. Get him up to speed. Keep it strictly professional. Definitely no more kissing.

  In the locker room she changed out of her civilian clothes and into her training fatigues. She arrived in the SWAT station house living room thirty minutes before she was scheduled to be there. Derek was already there sitting at the conference table that took up a good section of the room, looking over paperwork for the team.

  Jace was there, too, on the opposite side of the room.

  Ignoring Jace, she walked over to Derek and sat down next to him. Derek slid a file over to her.

  “Today’s sc
hedule.”

  Nothing out of the ordinary. Some PT, time to go over the building plans of the LESS Summit and one of Lillian’s favorite drills.

  “The Gauntlet. Haven’t done that one in a while. Pretty brutal.”

  Derek grinned. “I thought it would be a good team-builder. Trial by fire.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m going to have you pair up with Eakin.”

  “For the Gauntlet?”

  “That and for the summit.”

  “Seriously?”

  Lilian glanced over at Jace, who was leaning against the wall messing with his phone. The slight smirk lifting the corner of his mouth let her know he could hear everything being said.

  She made a show of looking over the schedule again. “Maybe you should assign Jace to someone else. Team me with Saul. Or even Carnell.” She swallowed her grimace at both offers. She didn’t want to be assigned to either of them. It would limit her effectiveness at the summit.

  “No. Carnell will be tactical command and computers only. He’s not ready for active missions. Saul is better, but he’s still not top-tier. Unless I see something over the next few days that makes me think Eakin doesn’t have the skills I think he has, you two will be the Alpha team.”

  Everybody was important on a mission like protecting the LESS Summit, but the Alpha team was second in command to Derek, able to make judgment calls and decisions without approval when needed.

  “Is that going to be a problem?” Derek asked when Lillian didn’t respond. “There’s obviously history between you two.”

  Yes, there was history, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from being as effective as possible. From making the entire team be as effective as possible. They’d need to be as strong as they could for whatever Damien Freihof had planned. Putting ancient history aside would be no problem.

  Lillian glanced at Jace again, his blue eyes now piercing hers. She didn’t look away. “No—no problem,” she told Derek. “Our past was a long time ago. It’s over. It was over before it even started.”

  * * *

  IT WAS OVER before it even started.

  Lillian’s quiet words stung even hours later. They shouldn’t; after all, they were only the truth. Their relationship—at least the sexual side of it—had ended almost as soon as it began.

  Trying to stick to the letting-bygones-be-bygones promise he made yesterday was proving a little more difficult than he had expected.

  Jace pushed the entire conversation from his mind. There was no room for worrying about the distant past out here on the Gauntlet, which was a glorified obstacle course full of real-life dangers—fire, barbed wire and paintball-type ammunition that wouldn’t seriously wound someone, but would hurt like hell if you got hit.

  Harsh words were the least of his problems right now.

  Evidently there was some sort of multimillion-dollar training simulator nearby, but the way everyone had started crossing themselves and balking when it was mentioned made him think it wasn’t very popular.

  So here they were, out in a wooded area, having just crawled 500 yards under barbed wire. He and Lillian were a team, moving together. There were four other two-person teams made up of the various SWAT members he’d met yesterday. This exercise was part race, part team-building.

  It wasn’t unlike some of the obstacles and exercises he’d been a part of as an Army Ranger. He understood the importance of pushing the body and the mind, and doing it with the person who was going to have your back when you went into battle. It looked like he and Lillian would be that person for each other.

  And she wasn’t too happy about it.

  Unhappy because she was being forced to work with an ex? Or unhappy because that ex was a new person on the team who might recognize some suspicious behavior on her part that her other colleagues could miss?

  Either way, she was pushing those feelings aside now. She seemed vaguely surprised that he was able to keep up with her rapid crab-crawl pace under the barbed wire, roughly eighteen inches over the ground. Her small stature gave her a decided advantage for an obstacle of this type, and Lily knew how to use it.

  But Jace knew how to make his body move quickly also. Even though the wire was sometimes only an inch or two over his shoulders and back, he used his abdominal muscles to keep himself straight and low, speed from his long reach making up for the caution he had to use because of his size.

  As they reached the last of the wire and rolled out, they took cover behind some trees.

  “You’re fast,” she said.

  “Not my first rodeo.”

  The rest of the teams were making their way along the ground, Philip Carnell having the most difficult time.

  “Do we need to go back in and help Carnell?” he said.

  Lillian gave a brief shake of her head. “No. Normally Derek doesn’t even allow him to do this sort of training even though Carnell insists he should be given the chance. But he may be needed to do something besides provide tactical assistance next week in Denver, so today he’s in.”

  “Is he going to make it?” Carnell’s partner was Saul Poniard, who might also be new, but was light-years ahead of Carnell when it came to physical abilities.

  “Saul will get him through hopefully. And we’ll get Philip out as a team if he needs it. Not that he’ll thank us for it.” Lillian shook her head. “As Alpha team, we’re going to have our own problems. We’ll need to take out the sniper before he picks everyone off.”

  “Sniper?”

  Lillian grinned. “You didn’t think Derek was going to miss the fun, did you? That man loves his paintball gun. You and I will have to take him out before everyone else gets there. That’s Alpha team’s primary challenge.”

  “Then let’s get moving.”

  They navigated a series of obstacles, including a fifty-foot rope climb, before coming to a pile of five large, heavy logs.

  “Each of these has to be maneuvered through this next section.” Lillian referred to the logs. “Every two-person team is responsible for one log. We choose to make it either hard on us or hard on the other teams coming behind us.”

  Jace raised an eyebrow. “So...heaviest?”

  Lillian’s smile was huge and he had to fight to keep it from taking his breath away. “I was hoping you’d agree. But it’s not going to be easy.”

  “Then I guess you better stop grinning like an idiot and get to it.”

  Jace couldn’t stop the grin on his own face, either. Lily wanted to push herself. That was something he understood. He had known it about her even back in the day, and it was one of the reasons he had thought the army would be such a good fit for her also.

  He tamped down the spring of bitterness over the way things had turned out. Bygones. Much more important to focus on the problems at hand.

  The log was damn heavy. The exercise required them to lift the log over some obstacles, under others, and even carry it over their heads as they crossed a small creek.

  Lillian never complained, never slipped in supporting her part of the awkward piece of wood. By the time they threw it down half a mile later, they were both pushing the edges of exhaustion. They slumped together against the back of a tree, shoulder to shoulder, so they could each catch their breath.

  “Now we have to take out Derek and his evil paintball gun.” Her eyes were closed as she allowed her body to attempt to recapture some of its strength just as he did.

  “How do we do that with no gun of our own?”

  “Technically for this exercise, all we have to do to defeat him is for one of us to make it over the finish line without getting hit.” She didn’t sound very enthused about the idea.

  “Easier said than done?”

  Those brown eyes opened. “Derek is a mastermind at this. Plus, he knows all our strengths. We have about a five-percent success rate when it comes to getting past him.”
>
  “What about splitting up and running from two different directions?”

  She shook her head. “We’ve tried. It’s such a narrow strip of land, he can cover it and almost always get both people before they get across. We don’t have very much cover.”

  “What are the rules about just one person getting across? If that’s all we need, we should wait for everyone else, protect one person and everyone else can take the hits.”

  “First, the hits aren’t gentle. They hurt like hell.” She obviously had firsthand knowledge. “Second, to keep us from always grouping, the rule is, whoever makes it across the finish line unhit has two minutes to get the wounded the fifteen yards across no-man’s-land. Almost impossible if it’s one person trying to get multiple people across. And particularly impossible with the group coming up behind us.”

  Jace leaned his head back against the tree. He could hear the frustration in her voice. The Omega SWAT team was not up to the level it usually was. Too many new people. Too many wounded.

  “I have a plan,” he said.

  Now he had her full attention.

  “We’ll use Derek’s assumptions against him, with a little bit of trickery thrown in. But I’ll warn you, this won’t be easy. Particularly on you. We won’t be playing to your strengths. But we will be using your strength.”

  She sat up. “Okay. I’m game. What’s your plan?”

  “Derek expects you and me to make a break before the rest of the team gets here. To try to overcompensate for their limitations. To use your speed and my strength to get everyone else through.”

  “And we’re not going to do that?”

  Jace just smiled.

  Ten minutes later the other members of the team began catching up with them. Jace explained his plan. Everyone stared at Lillian once Jace told them what she would need to do.

  Even Lillian looked a little skeptical.

  “You can do it,” he said.

  “You’re going to take a lot of hits,” she responded. “Derek won’t like it and won’t show any mercy.”