“Thanks.” He could drink while he dried himself, so he did just that, noting, too, that she’d draped his pink sweatshirt over the back of a nearby chair, ready for him to pull on if and when he needed it. He purposely hadn’t worn it under the raincoat again because it would’ve become a hot, sweaty mess, and then he would’ve been walking around shirtless for all of the hours that it soaked and then endlessly dried. And although his being half-naked didn’t seem to bother Tasha, it made him uncomfortable. “It’s late. You should’ve gone to sleep. I would’ve been okay in the stairwell.”
It was warm enough that far underground, so he’d left out a blanket and a pillow and had thought he’d convinced her that he was ready to camp there for the rest of the night, in the event that she didn’t see the lights or hear him knock when he returned.
“Yeah, well, I got caught up in a good book,” Tasha said as she picked up his discarded raincoat and poncho and carried them to their hooks in the utility room to dry.
Yes, there was a romance novel, spine-up on the coffee table. And she was clearly close to done. But he could read the real story in the relief that lingered in her eyes as she came back into the living room.
Relief and happiness and burning curiosity.
He should’ve known better than to think she’d sleep while he was gone. And the weird thing was, he was happy to be back here, too.
“The message I’d left earlier at the extraction point was untouched,” he told her, clarifying his Nothing yet, as he looped the towel around his neck and sat down on the sofa, keeping to the edge of his seat because he was going to continue to sweat for a while. And although there was deodorant in Ted’s guest-packs of toiletries, it wasn’t quite Navy SEAL strength. After he cooled down, he’d shower and use it, although it was weird to smell like someone else, probably Ted, which was vaguely unsettling.
Tasha had curled up in her usual place on the other section of the sofa’s L and was watching him, clearly waiting for him to continue. He realized then that along with losing the towel-hat, she was down to just one blanket and one bathrobe over her shirt and jeans. Her red hair cascaded down the white blanket that she wore like a cape as she watched him—Tasha’s eyes in this beautiful woman’s face. A woman who was no longer a stranger.
Thomas cleared his throat, feeling self-conscious about his lack of a shirt, so he spread his towel out across his shoulders. “So I left a second. Message. But no one’s been in the area at all. I still have... high hopes for tomorrow morning.”
“Seriously, Pollyanna?” she said, her eyes dancing with laughter. “Are they also apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes?”
It was hard not to laugh with her. “I’m being honest with you here, and you’re mocking me?”
“Damn straight,” she said. “Where do your high hopes fall on the scale from We’re definitely going home tomorrow to It’s time to start hunting bunny-wabbits?”
“Pretty close to the center,” he said.
“So, fifty/fifty?” she asked.
No. The fact that no one had shown up by now meant that something was seriously wrong. “Sure. Let’s call it that.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she continued to gaze at him. “So a fifty percent chance that no one will rescue us tomorrow means your hopes are high. Interesting.”
“I’m a SEAL,” Thomas reminded her. “My job is to expect the worst, so yeah, I’d agree that a fifty percent chance that something might actually go right means I’m very hopeful.”
“When did you become such a shitty liar?” she asked, surprising him. Again.
“I think I’ve always been a shitty liar,” he admitted, “but you were too young to know it.”
Tash was quiet for a moment, just watching him as he finished the bottle of water. But then she said, “Well, it’s nice to meet the real, grown-up you. What does pretty close to the center really mean?”
“That I think we might be here for a while,” Thomas hedged.
“We,” she said. “Not just me? Because that whole Plan B where you leave me here and hike back to the airfield? I absolutely veto that.”
Thomas knew his best response wasn’t to argue—he was in charge, so her so-called veto meant nothing. Instead, he simply continued his sit-rep. “After I left that second message, I went back to the lodge, to see if anyone had been there since I was there last, and yeah, there were fresh tire tracks. I followed them, although I really didn’t have to. Whoever these guys are, they’re definitely not trying to hide the camp they set up. Big fire. Lots of smoke and light. High-end tents. At least twenty men, all heavily armed. A single vehicle, though—a small SUV.”
“One SUV with all those men?” she asked, picking up on that detail.
Thomas nodded. “Yeah, they’ve definitely got another camp somewhere, with that van and the other vehicle we saw during the roadblock.”
“Maybe the cabin where they brought me...?”
“Maybe.”
“How far away from the pod were they—this camp you saw?” she asked. “Because we should be even more careful when you leave. I mean, to go to the extraction point to check for messages, not for—”
“I know what you mean,” he said.
“And maybe we—you—should, I don’t know, camouflage or somehow cover—”
Thomas interrupted her again. “This shelter’s concrete bulwark? Yup. Already done. As of yesterday morning.” He stood up, ready for his shower.
“Wow, it’s useful having a Navy SEAL around,” Tasha said. “I mean, the always-thinking-and-planning-for-disaster thing might be worth the serious deficit in optimism.”
“Might be?”
“Jury’s still out,” she told him. “I’ll let you know.”
He had to laugh—and the question came out, almost involuntarily. “So is Ted an optimist, too?”
Her gaze turned thoughtful, as if she were considering her answer carefully. “I think maybe you’re asking if Ted’s a happy idiot, like me?”
“Nuh-nuh-no. I do not think you’re a happy idiot,” he countered.
“But you think maybe Ted might be...?”
“Nah,” he said, drawing the word out, but yeah, she recognized another lie, and she laughed, shaking her head at him.
“First, he’s not even close to an idiot,” Tash said. “And he’s definitely not happy being groomed as the future king, but... He’s generally optimistic. Not necessarily about the things that matter most in his life, which is a shame, but day-to-day, I’d say, yeah.”
Thomas could see that Tasha realized he didn’t understand what she’d meant about Ted not being optimistic about things that mattered. Like, what kind of things? But he didn’t have to ask—she kept going. “Ted probably has exactly what it takes to get through a program like BUD/S, for example.”
Thomas felt his eyebrows rising, and she rolled her eyes at him and waved her hand, dismissing his disbelief.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, Navy SEAL BUD/S training is for the best of the best,” she continued, “and Ted’s some soft, spoiled prince. But he’s smart, he’s strong, he’s creative, he’s a fantastic team player, and he doesn’t have any faith in himself, whatsoever, so he’d never even try. He quits before he even thinks about starting. That’s Ted’s MO. But in the little, seemingly unimportant day-to-day things, or during the times he doesn’t stop to think, he just acts...? Like, Hey, the sky is really blue today, let’s climb that mountain! Or Look, that car has engine trouble, let’s stop and help and figure out how to fix it with the random things in our pockets and bags! That’s Ted’s MO, too.”
“He sounds...”
“Complicated?” Tasha finished Thomas’s sentence for him. “Yeah.”
“I was going to say interesting,” he said.
“Most complicated people are.”
And now she was looking at him like she could see inside of him, which made him nervous, because he wasn’t quite sure himself why he’d started this conversation about her soon-to-be-fiancé.
There was a spark o
f hope, and yeah, plenty of optimism, in the warmth of her eyes, so Thomas went back to the unsettlingly honest thing she’d said to him, and echoed her own words. “You know, it’s nice to meet the real, grown-up you, too. I’m glad we’re friends again, Tash. I really am. And Ted sounds like he’s pretty great, so... I’m happy for you.” He’d buttoned that badly, so he finished with, “You need to use the bathroom before I, uh, hit the shower?”
Tasha shook her head. “No, thanks, I’m good.”
Thomas closed the bathroom door behind him, thinking, shit. He’d leaned hard on that friends, but was that for her benefit—or for his?
Chapter Sixteen
As Rio and Dave approached, the little rural airfield’s runway lights powered up.
“I’m hoping that’s a signal that their tower’s had contact from the prince’s jet,” Dave said optimistically. “If he lands soon...”
If he landed in the next five minutes, it would only take seven hours and five minutes to make the round trip to Burlington, Vermont. Seven hours and five minutes before they returned to their primary mission of finding Tasha and Thomas.
Assuming the prince wasn’t packing any bullshit in his carry-on. Assuming he landed without mishap and willingly gave himself up, cheerfully climbed into the backseat of their SUV, and enthusiastically let himself be delivered to Vermont without any pushback.
Yeah.
Right.
What was the protocol for strong-arming a prince?
Dave was waiting for some kind of response, so Rio managed to make a noncommittal-sounding grunt as he navigated around one of the larger potholes in the airfield parking lot. There were five other vehicles—four pickups and a patrol car—already there, and he could see at least as many people gathered in the small, open-air hangar. Just the sight of them pissed him off. God help them if they questioned his authority or otherwise slowed them down in the slightest.
But that wasn’t the only reason they pissed him off.
“You’re from a small town, right?” he asked Dave as he killed the engine.
“Yeah, sort of,” Dave said, climbing out of the SUV and stretching. “Damn, it’s cold. I mean, North Port’s lots smaller than Sarasota. But even Sarasota’s not very big, so... I’ll go with yes. Why?”
“My small-town radar sucks.” Rio opened the back, and unlocked the weapons locker. Time for a little concealed carry—that he wouldn’t bother to fully conceal. He slipped on the nylon shoulder holster, then covered it with a jacket but didn’t zip up. “I walk into a place like this, you know, population seven-hundred-and-something—that’s like half the size of my high school graduating class—and I assume everybody in town must know everybody else. Like, there’s probably someone in that hangar, right now, who directly knows someone who’s on the payroll of the asshole who torched the Ustanzian ski lodge.”
Dave nodded as he grabbed some extra ammo. “That’s a healthy assumption,” he agreed.
Which meant that thanks to the impetuous and spoiled prince, they’d not only just lost a shitload of time, they’d also just given up the element of surprise.
Perfect.
Rio locked everything back up, double-checking that it was secure.
“Ooh, maybe the airport has working WiFi!” Dave already had his phone out as he searched for a connection. But his enthusiasm immediately faded. “Damn it.”
And now Jon-without-an-H, who still hadn’t texted Dave any response whatsoever, was pissing Rio off nearly as much as Little Prince Motherfuckin’ Tedric was.
“Let’s get this over with,” Rio said, leading the way toward the hangar.
Thomas had bludgeoned her with a friend-and-run.
I’m glad we’re fffrrriennndddsss again, Tash, gotta take a shower, k, thanx, bye!
This was definitely her cue to take her book and vanish into the bedroom, so they didn’t have to sing verse nine-hundred-and-twelve of the Awkward Song after his shower.
He’d failed to take the pink sweatshirt in with him, so when he did come out of the bathroom, he’d be not just freshly scrubbed and sweet-smelling, he’d have all those powerful Navy SEAL chest and back and shoulder and arm muscles on full display. And that, combined with his thin flannel pants with their draw-string waist worn low on his hips...
Thomas had referred to them as clown-pants, but nuh-uh.
Nope.
She was the only clown in this rodeo.
And while Tash told herself she was sticking around merely to apply more antibiotic ointment onto the back of Thomas’s head, she was lying.
Except when he finally came out of the bathroom, he’d wrapped himself in the red robe that she’d hung on the back of the door. He’d always looked good in rich colors, but this robe was...
It was an equally fantasy-inducing costume, but the plotline had a decidedly different essence than shirtless-from-the-shower. It was a different flavor of delicious.
He didn’t seem surprised to see her still sitting on the sofa with her book, but then again, he had a truly great poker face. It was only when he spoke that she could tell if he was lying or telling the truth.
“I hung my pants up to dry in the bathroom,” he told her, no doubt feeling a need to explain why his legs were bare beneath that decadent-looking robe. On him, it wasn’t floor length. On him, the robe ended mid-powerful-looking-calf. He hadn’t bothered putting on the slippers and his feet were bare, too.
“That’s okay,” she said. “We’re safe. I’ve got my jeans on under here.”
He gave her his Really? You went there? face, so she gestured to the coffee table, where she’d already laid out the first-aid kit.
“It’s time to play our daily round of Prevent! That! Infection!” she told him. “It’s your turn. I’ve already changed my bandage—Melvin is healing very nicely.”
“Next time, wait before you bandage it back up. I want to see. You also might want to start leaving it open to the air.”
“Got it,” she told him, setting down her book as she stood up, heading into the kitchen to wash her hands. “Sit there, and oh, have a beer.” She raised her voice to talk over the water running. “I figured this was a good time for you to drink some calories. I mean, compared to having a beer with your breakfast, before you go back out to check for messages from Uncle Alan...?”
“Good guess,” he called back. “You’re not having one?”
As she came back in, drying her hands on a towel, he took a swig, then reached for the peanut jar that was his—marked with a K-for-King. It was still half-full, while hers—marked with an F-for-Francisco—was nearly empty. Of course, he’d been out for all that time while she’d been sitting here, hungry and anxiety-eating.
“I opted for a glass of liquid grapes a couple hours ago—a very nice red blend that paired wonderfully with peanuts,” she told him. “Here, lean forward a little.”
He complied, and she surveyed his injury. It was slightly swollen and no doubt still badly bruised and tender to the touch, but the scrape was, like Melvin, healing nicely. Still, a little antibiotic goop couldn’t hurt. She dolloped some into her palm, handing the open tube to him to close, and began to gently dab.
“Since we’ve already discussed Ted and his various failings, whatever happened to Rachel?” she asked.
Thomas laughed his surprise. “Rachel?”
“Yeah. Dark brown hair, cool glasses, from New York? She was in San Diego during the summer, for some kind of... tech internship, I think it was...?”
“Oh, I remember Rachel,” he told her. “She had a paid internship for a work-study program at SolarCal. She was in an advanced engineering program at RIT—Rochester Institute of Technology.”
“She was really tall,” Tasha said.
He laughed again. “No, she wasn’t.”
“She was to me,” she pointed out. “And she was smart. I... liked her.” Not a complete lie. She’d been green-dagger jealous of Rachel, for sure. She’d been fourteen when Thomas first started dating the grad stud
ent—fifteen when they broke up. But Rachel had always been incredibly patient and kind in the face of Tash’s surly teenaged death-wish petulance.
“She was special,” Thomas agreed. “When did you meet her?”
“You brought her to the Team cookouts at the Catalanottos’,” Tasha said.
“Right,” he said. “Right. Yeah, I had that temporary assignment as a BUD/S instructor, so I was around a lot that summer.”
“It was a good time to girlfriend up.” Tash knew from growing up with a close proximity to the Coronado Naval Base that many of the younger SEALs used the age-old excuse But we’re never in one place for very long to steer clear of romantic commitments. Yeah, right—their keep it casual prime-directive was always gallantly due to a deep desire to keep the other person from being hurt in the long run. Ahem. “But it was more than just that one summer, you and Rachel.” She finished with the ointment, and used a tissue to wipe the remainder from her hands as she moved to pack up the first-aid kit.
Thomas helped her. “That’s right. She came back to SolarCal in the spring, for her next work semester. I think we all went—”
“Bowling.” They said the word in unison as Tasha sat down across the L from him.
“It was Uncle Bobby’s birthday, so everyone was there,” she continued. “But then the Team got called in.” It happened right after Tash had gotten a strike—everyone had been cheering—she still remembered that night vividly. “You went to the base with Alan, so Mia took your truck and we drove Rachel home. She was... a little freaked out.”
Thomas shot her a You think? look as he nursed his beer. And yeah, that was a major understatement.
Rachel had been tremendously freaked out by the fact that the SEALs all just rushed away, heading into God-knows-what kind of danger. There was—because there always was—the possibility that they might not come back alive, and the reality of that shook her badly.
“I remember thinking how did someone so smart not understand,” Tasha said. “I mean, you’d been together for more than a year by then—she was dating a SEAL. What did she think that meant?”
King's Ransom: (Tall, Dark and Dangerous Book 13) Page 14
