Nik and I shot out of the house, with Coop trailing. Nik warned me to stay back and I skidded to a stop at the edge of the deck. In the distance Titan clawed viciously at the peeling bark of a thick tree trunk. Leaping up from his haunches, he tried to scale it before giving up and rounding the tree out of sight.
Nik and Coop, who’d both kept running toward the commotion, pulled up short as a pair of legs dangling from the evergreen’s foliage jerked up. Skirting another of Titan’s leaps, the man’s backside lifted to avoid the snap of his wide jaws.
Coop collapsed to the ground in laughter. The body up the tree evidently belonged to his brother Leo and not anyone dangerous.
“Titan, off! Off! Come!” I hollered until he emerged from the woods. He loped toward me, mouth splayed wide and eyes sparkling with satisfaction.
At Nik’s laughing assurance of Titan being under control, the treed man dropped to the ground, less than amused. He dusted pine needles from his body and shook them out of his hair before straightening his clothes. Nik clapped him on the back in greeting as the three men started back up the drive, broad shoulder to broad shoulder. A formidable wall of muscle and brawn.
Leo’s hair wasn’t as black as his brother’s and fell longer and curlier. Where Coop’s looked a shaggy mess, Leo’s was a thick, soft mane. Like the other men, his body was beyond fit, warrior-like. Where Leo differed most was in the way he looked at me. His gaze dipped, never confronting me full-on the way Coop’s did, nor raking my body in Nik’s now standard heated appraisal.
Flashing me a curvy smile, Leo shook my hand, introducing himself as Coop’s younger brother.
“I’m Thea.”
“Like the Greek goddess?”
A hint of familiarity about mythology came to me, but before I could figure out the connection to my name, Coop interrupted with a grunt. “Enough of this goddess bullshit. Nik and I have unfinished business. Break open the Jack,” Coop commanded Nik. “We need to toast Mr. Foxtrot and listen to songs about whiskey.”
I noticed Nik’s body had stiffened and his smile had dropped as we all filed back into the cabin, Titan included.
Coop still hadn’t mustered up any manners. He went straight to pouring the Jack Daniel’s, purposefully distributing shot glasses to Nik and Leo before pausing as his eyes locked on mine. “Can I see an ID?”
“Don’t be a dick,” Nik muttered, much to my relief. He edged the drink closer to me, his fingertips stroking against mine as I took it.
I watched the men hold their glasses to the ceiling. “To Mr. Foxtrot,” Leo said, while Nik and Coop belted “Till Valhalla!” in unison, then they all downed their shots.
Valhalla, a paradise reserved for Viking warriors killed in battle? It was confusing having these kinds of facts file into my brain, when I still had no idea where I’d learned them.
Coop eyed the lone remaining shot glass on the table then me. “Mr. Foxtrot is William Thomas Farris, aka W-T-F. Or what the fuck, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, in military speak. More simply and formally, Mr. Foxtrot. One of the best damn soldiers and men to have ever walked this earth.” He lifted his brows and angled his head sharply in the direction of my shot glass. “Drink.”
I hoisted the glass up the same way Nik and Leo had. “To Mr. Foxtrot.”
Tipping all the liquid into my mouth, I held the numbing fluid on my tongue for a short moment, then closed my eyes and knocked it to the back of my throat, letting it slide down fast. To my left, I vaguely heard Leo’s appreciative, “Damn.”
Nik leaned in, his tongue tracing a swift path along my bottom lip. As he kissed me, he pulled me flush to him, catching my body quaking from the burst of alcohol. “I’m sorry we’re not alone,” he whispered in a heated rumble against my ear.
No, we were most definitely not.
Coop’s dark eyes were sizing us up as he dropped his thick body onto the couch. He kicked out his legs, crossing his cowboy boots on the coffee table as he folded his arms over his chest. “So…what is this, anyway?”
“Leave it alone,” Leo cautioned from the bar chair he’d taken.
“No, I won’t leave it alone. Nik brought some…woman with a dog home,” he said as he rolled his eyes. “We need to discuss this.”
Frustration whipped through me. “Why does everyone think I’m a hooker with a dog?”
A wide smile split Coop’s rugged features. “My God, priceless, Steele!”
His bulky frame collapsed sideways on the couch as he erupted in laughter, gasping so hard it looked painful.
Nik clasped my hand, his thick fingers threading between mine and locking down. I wasn’t sure if he meant to comfort me or restrain me. But I needed both.
“No one thinks you’re a hooker with a dog, Thea.”
“You said Dylan did. What does Coop mean by ‘woman with a dog’, then?” I asked, emphasizing the incredulous way he’d said the words.
“Who the fuck is Dylan?” Coop sputtered as he righted himself, still not quite composed from his hysteria fit.
“Dylan is… You know what, never mind. Thea, Coop wasn’t giving you shit, he was giving me shit. We do that. We’re jackasses that way. He’s naturally skeptical because he knows I don’t normally bring women nor their pets to my house. End of story.”
“End of story? Already? And me without my happy ending.” Coop spread his heavy arms across the back of the couch as he resumed his critical appraisal of us. “Speaking of lack of happy endings, after you texted me you weren’t coming, I checked your surveillance and caught the world’s strangest and yet most boring porn.”
Leo slapped a hand over his mortified expression. “Jesus, Coop!”
I didn’t quite follow, but from the way Nik’s grip tightened painfully down on my hand and his eyes cut sharply to what appeared to be a security camera in the corner of the room, I pieced it together. Coop had watched us? Seen me? Memories of Nik carrying me, my cold naked body pressed to his bare chest, and our first kiss on the couch, flooded back to me. Between the towels and blankets most of my body had been covered. I hoped. But more than catching a flash of my ass or boob, it pissed me off Coop had invaded such an intimate moment.
Nik dropped my hand, his fingers curling into a fist and his jaw clenching hard. For once the kill flex wasn’t directed at me. “Don’t worry, I’ll be taking you off my security system immediately.”
Coop eyed him with boredom. “Please do. I hadn’t realized I’d subscribed to the Lifetime Supply of Tampax channel when I set it up.”
“For what it’s worth, she beat your ice bath record.”
I cringed, not wanting any reminders of my stupidity or why I’d done it, but damn if Coop’s eyes didn’t cut right through me as he asked, “Trying to kill yourself?”
“What the hell, Coop? Seriously?” Leo snapped again, shaking his head in disgust. “I apologize for my brother, Thea. He has no manners.”
No shit.
“Don’t even act like I’m the one being the asshole, here.” Coop jerked his feet off the table and leaned forward, propping his forearms on his knees as he stared at Nik. “You flat-out lied. To me. We had plans.”
“Then take it up with me and stop being shitty to Thea.” Nik’s tone was a firm command and the subtext clear.
The two men’s eyes locked with intensity, leaving the rest of the great room in a blur of tension. I half expected them to go after each other again. This time I planned to aim the Squatch Knocker at Coop’s head.
Nik scrubbed his jawline, pushing his palm to the back of his neck with agitation. “I shouldn’t have lied to you, but it’s complicated.”
“Well fucking simplify it and fast.” Coop’s brooding stare cut across the room, avoiding me before it dropped on Titan, neutralized. “Sprechen sie Deutsch? Pooch?”
The strange sounds confused me momentarily, before I recognized he was speaking another language, or rather, asking my dog if he spoke another language.
“Hey, hey, rinde.”
At the command
for speak, Titan let out a sharp, single bark, his focus intent on Coop.
“You do! Kommen.”
Titan approached Coop at the come command.
“Braver hund!”
Wagging his tail at the praise, Titan scooted closer to Coop, letting out a whimper as he step climbed his front paws up on Coop’s thigh. To my shock, Titan poked him hard in the head with his snout.
Fearing Coop might punish my dog, I called out, “Titan, no! Off.”
Leo shifted uncomfortably, still uneasy about Titan nearly attacking him and now possibly his brother. Coop, unfazed, maneuvered Titan off him, all the while rubbing, patting him, whispering into his ear.
“I’m sorry! I’ve never seen him do that.”
As Coop pulled back, he put his finger over his lips as if shushing Titan.
“He’s fine. Just getting to know me.” To Titan, he cooed, “My girl spoke Dutch. You want to see her? This is Alley Cat.”
Coop took his phone out and flashed the screen at Titan. I stared at the exchange. Was Coop really sharing secrets with my dog? Showing Titan pictures? Baby talking to him?
From the short distance I could make out the screenshot of Coop in full military gear with a dog marked similarly to Titan. Her body was much leaner with sharper lines in her facial structure. The dog’s breed, Belgian Malinois, flashed into my consciousness.
“Wasn’t she pretty? She was the smartest, bravest girl. Saved our asses more times than I can count.” He kissed his fingertip and touched the screen before clicking it off and giving Titan’s scruff a good scratching shake.
“We’re gonna be good buddies, huh, boy?” He turned to me, his friendly expression gone. “Do you speak German, too?”
I’d understood the foreign words he’d spoken to Titan, but feared I wouldn’t be able to speak them. Not wanting to give away my amnesia, I shot him a wry smile, my eyes meeting his full-on. “If I do, will we be good buddies?”
Coop rattled off a few words in the foreign language. I roughly understood them to mean, Any friend of Nik’s is a friend of mine, but if you do wrong by him, we’ll have problems.
Nik eyed me with curiosity. I wasn’t sure if he understood German or not, but I’d sensed he wasn’t thrilled Coop and I had gotten off on the wrong foot. I decided to take the high road. “No problems here. I’m sorry about earlier. I thought you were attacking Nik. I was only trying to help him.”
“It’s good you’ve got his back.” With a sharpened glare at Leo, he added in a low voice, “Too bad my own brother didn’t have my six.”
Leo returned the glower, adding a slight eye-roll. “I was busy climbing a tree.”
“Fucking off as usual,” Coop muttered before turning back to me. “Nik and I have been friends for a long time and we can get rather rough with each other.”
Coop made growling noises as he reached out, gripping Titan in an aggressive hold. Titan snarled back through fierce rumbles.
I lunged to stop Titan from ripping this idiot to shreds, but Nik’s hand closed around my elbow, stopping me. “They’re just playing.”
My heartbeat quickened. Both man and beast collided hard—feral and ferocious. Did Nik seriously think this was just playing? Bulging my eyes at him, Nik gave a small shake of his head and mouthed he’s okay.
Violent sounds sliced the air as they grappled with each other. When Titan clamped his mouth around Coop’s forearm, I almost ripped out of Nik’s hold. But at Coop’s sharp command of, “Aus!” Titan released him. It was over. My heart pounded out as I wildly scanned both Coop and Titan. Not a drop of blood had been shed. How was that possible?
Titan’s tongue flapped as he panted happily, mouth splayed open in wide satisfaction. As Coop’s wide hand came around his heavily furred scruff in a hug, Titan leaned into it.
Coop’s amused gaze lifted, connecting with my confused one. “See, Nik and I are a couple of old war dogs who love to tussle with each other. We meant no harm fighting with each other, except to the other’s pride. I apologize for frightening you, Thea.”
Leo’s brows made a surprised hop at the word apologize. Apparently, he hadn’t heard his brother say it very often, which didn’t shock me.
“In addition to being one of the best damn snipers in the world, Coop was the dog handler on our team,” Nik explained with a smile, no doubt hoping some of the tension between his friend and I had been cut. “He’s part wolf and has never been properly housebroken.”
Coop rose up and let out a couple of long howls as he went to get another round of shots. Titan barked a reply, eagerly following his new buddy.
After watching Coop attack both Nik and my dog, I wasn’t about to let my guard down around him, but I smiled and said, “Sorry again about hitting you with the Squatch Knocker.”
Leo perked up. “You hit him with a what?”
It was Nik’s turn to crack up in a hearty laugh. His explanation came complete with an overly dramatic reenactment including the knocker, much to Leo’s delight. Coop, unamused, threatened to command Titan to tree both their sorry asses.
Nik led us all outside to a circular rock pit with several low-slung, bright red wooden chairs surrounding it. He tossed a few logs in before stoking a fire. Sparks spit out as the flames rose high, licking heat into the cold, crisp night air. The smell of it filled my lungs as I took it all in.
The guys continued to pour liquor down their throats and swap stories of Will until the bottle was empty and it was time to switch to beer. Through it all, Coop tossed sticks deep into the woods for Titan to eagerly fetch.
Nik had wanted testosterone and it’d been delivered in spades. Our tranquil, perfect world now seemed a cacophony of noise and motion. It overwhelmed me to try and keep up with the hunky men’s club that had descended upon the previously quiet cabin. I wasn’t sure what to make of the brothers, especially Coop. But I loved how happy Nik was to be with his guy friends. Seeing their camaraderie made me think about the fun I had with Aimee, and how much I wanted that kind of friendship, too. Nik didn’t think I could trust her, but my gut told me differently.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nik connected his phone to the outdoor speakers and turned up Hank Williams Jr.’s twangy voice. Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound aptly kicked off Mr. Foxtrot’s custom playlist extoling the virtues of his spirit of choice. The only thing missing was Will’s pitchy backup vocals and a lazily bobbing cigarette threatening to drop from his lips with each belted-out chorus.
And Thea. Nik was missing her too. He’d felt her absence since she’d headed into the house to play with some of her new girlie products about a half-hour or so before. He settled into an Adirondack chair and tapped out a text to check in on her.
Thea: painting my toe nails
Nik: I need a pic
The photo came back of her sitting on the master bathroom vanity. Sparkly red dotted her toes as they curled around the edge of his rectangular white sink. Her perfect, pink ass was reflected in the mirror beside her. Hell yeah. Nik’s nostrils flared as he drew in a slow, calming breath. Below the sensuous slope of her arched back and atop a beautifully rounded upside-down flesh heart, the lacey red triangle of her thong teased him. He pushed his tongue along the roof of his watering mouth, then torqued his neck to either side. Oh, she’d been warned.
Coop leveled a stare at Nik as he rose to excuse himself. “Where do you think you’re going? This evening is about Will and we still haven’t talked about what happened.”
Nik lifted his brows and pretended he’d gotten up to stoke the fire again. A few harsh jabs sent an excessive round of sparks scattering high above the logs. Talking about Will’s death was not at the top of his list of things he wanted to do, much less at this exact moment. He’d much prefer distracting himself with Thea’s sweet smiles and heavenly body, leaving thoughts of Will entombed along with his friend.
Bury it was the common philosophy of men like Nik on how to handle pain, fear, worry, and sometimes even love. But Coop wasn’t like t
he other Team Guys in that regard. He didn’t bury things on the battlefield. Nor did he barricade or compartmentalize his pain. He felt everything full-on. To Coop, the death of a teammate was the deepest kind of wound—too dangerous to heal over from the top. Bullets and shrapnel needed to be removed in order for the body to heal, and the same applied to emotional wounds. Extract the pain from the heart so it can heal from the inside out.
The medic inside Nik understood this, but the son, brother, and teammate who’d known only loss couldn’t bring himself to put it into practice. For Nik, healing was one more form of letting go, saying goodbye.
He forced himself to focus on Coop’s stories about Will from better days. On boring days in remote outposts waiting for action, with Will coming up with his craziest antics. On tense days, when Will came through, fighting until the bitter end.
“Foxy. Fuck, man. He was one tough son of a bitch.” Coop unabashedly whisked a tear from his eye.
“He was a damn good soldier,” Nik agreed. But really all he could remember right then was the surfer-boy’s easy smile and his laid-back, California confidence.
Coop tilted his beer bottle at Nik and narrowed his eyes. “That’s all you got? Nothing about how it went down?”
Coop wanted more. Not because he was curious. He’d seen every possible way a man could die, same as Nik. What Coop wanted was for Nik to get everything from the field out. Replaying his friend’s life was hard enough. Reliving his death was too much.
“The whole deployment was a shitshow.” Each mission more suicidal than the next thanks to ridiculous rules of engagement favoring those who never played by the rules. Not to mention the cresting wave of politics and the resulting crushing roll into the coral of media backlash. The days of playing on-call pit bull for the CIA and oval office had worn thin and ultimately led to his decision to leave the Teams. “Typical government whack-a-mole mission gone bad.”
“That’s it?” Accusation clipped Coop’s words. “Really?”
Nik had had enough of his alpha dog routine for one night. “Yes. Fucking. Really. The rest is classified.”
Twist My Heart (Wicked Games Book 1) Page 17
