Tate Page 7

  Tate reached for the briefcase and opened it. Knox’s pictures, newspaper reports, emails, and every detail he’d researched about the near tragedy in San Antonio were neatly piled together. “Thanks.”

  Knox pulled up to the Cessna. “Stop these guys, Tate.” He met Tate’s eyes, his mouth a grim line. “And don’t get killed.”

  The memory of Knox tackling Slava off his body as his last breath leaked out flashed across his brain. His throat tightened, and he wasn’t sure how to pinpoint the emotion.

  Knox got out, did his walk-around and final checks, and soon they were airborne.

  Their land undulated below them, their herd of beef cattle lounging on the greening table. Knox kept the bucking bulls—four of them, along with their star bull, Gordo—in their own separate fields.

  The hum of the plane was too loud to talk, so Tate let thoughts of Glo take over.

  Glo, when he’d first met her, dirty from the bombing, standing sentry outside Kelsey’s ambulance.

  Glo, desperate as she searched for Kelsey when she discovered her friend missing.

  Glo, sweet as she coaxed Kelsey out of a panic attack.

  Glo, onstage, singing her heart out, her fingers flying on her banjo.

  Glo, after a gig, sharing a pizza with him, beating him in a game of gin rummy.

  Glo, dancing in his arms at the Bulldog Saloon, grinning, laughing.

  Glo, calling him Tater, Rambo, and every other nickname she could think of.

  Glo, bleeding from a gunshot wound, her face pale.

  Glo, hanging onto him as he carried her to help.

  Glo, her eyes in his after she’d sung her song about second chances.

  Glo, tugging him down to kiss him, her lips warm, her body molding to his.

  Glo, weeping as she walked out of his life.

  His chest ached, and he reached up and pressed a hand against it as Knox touched down at the Helena airport.

  Tate climbed out, grabbed the briefcase and the duffel bag.

  Knox got out too. Stood in front of him, a look of unmasked worry on his face. “Okay, so….”

  “I’ll be fine. See you in a few.” He held out his hand to Knox.

  Knox pulled him in quick, slapped his back. “Stay out of trouble.”

  Tate gave him a grin, then headed inside.

  He booked his flight at the desk, not even blinking at the price. On his flight, he squeezed himself into a window seat, changed planes in Salt Lake City, then northern Kentucky, and finally landed in Nashville just as the sun hit the back side of the day.

  He rented a car and drove out of Nashville to the Jackson family estate, listening to the radio. A Brett Young song lit up the speakers.

  * * *

  I can’t count the times

  I almost said what’s on my mind

  But I didn’t…

  * * *

  Not anymore. Yes, his promise to Reba thrummed in his brain, but he’d keep the commitment.

  He would keep his distance.

  But it didn’t mean he couldn’t fall for Glo all over again.

  And when this mess was over…

  Yeah, no promises there, Senator.

  He followed his map to Brentwood and slowed as he drove up to the gated— Oh. My.

  He could barely see the house from the road. It sat back nearly a quarter mile, past a pond and rolling hills and a scant forest of maples and oaks. Beautiful chestnut thoroughbreds ran in a large field of emerald green grass.

  He stopped at the gate, spotted the cameras, and a voice came over a speaker. “Hello?”

  “Tate Marshall, for Senator Jackson. She’s expecting me.”

  The gate opened, and he drove along the paved, landscaped road to the big house.

  The Jackson estate was exactly that—a sprawling, pristine white Southern plantation-style home, with black shutters at the windows and tall columns that held up a front porch.

  He pulled into the brick paved driveway and got out. Sprinklers bathed the front lawn, groomed like a golf course, and as he’d driven up, he’d spotted an expansive pool area behind the house.

  A man dressed in a suit—dark skinned, dark eyes, middle aged, and fit enough to be called security—walked from an outbuilding. “Tate.”

  He’d met Sylvester Roberts, head of Ms. Jackson’s security, in Vegas. The man extended his hand to Tate.

  Tate nodded, met his handshake. “Is she here?”

  “The Senator?”

  “Actually, no, I’d like to see Glo—”

  “Sorry, Tate, no can do.”

  “Mr. Roberts—”

  “It’s Sly, now that you’re on my staff, but don’t get cocky.”

  Tate frowned.

  “You work for me, Tate. You follow my orders. And you work the detail I assign you. Do you think you can manage that?”

  Tate drew in a breath. And that means not making trouble for her…

  “Yes, sir.”

  He pointed to Tate’s rental. “The Senator is unavailable, and you can see Gloria if she decides to summon you. She, however, is not here at the moment. And we’ve been given directives to make sure you follow protocol.”

  “Which is?”

  “Which means you keep your distance.” He pointed away from the house. “You can park that out back, near the employee housing. We don’t stay in the big house.”

  Tate was experiencing some sort of weird throwback to the pre–Civil War era.

  “I…okay.” He drew in a breath. “I’m hoping to be on Glo’s detail.”

  Sly shoved his hands into his pockets. “Oh, you’re on her detail. The Senator made sure of that. Get parked, and then we’ll give you an orientation and brief you on tomorrow’s event.”

  Tomorrow’s event? His face must have betrayed his question because Sly added, “It’s a fundraiser at a nearby estate. Senator Jackson and Gloria will be attending. Mr. Beckett will be joining them, and I believe Gloria has a date.”

  Tate just stared at him as Sly turned and walked back to the security building.

  And a fine sweat started on the top of his spine and slid down his back.

  Surrender is not a Ranger word.

  Fine. Let the battle begin.

  Scarlett loved her team. Which was the problem.

  She could get every one of them killed, with just the wrong word.

  Of course, she was safe and sound, usually tucked away in some stuffy office in the FOB, her eyes glued to a drone screen, relaying orders from Commander Hawkins, a short, powerfully built former SEAL who’d gone on to become one of SEAL Team Three’s best leaders.

  Calm. Collected.

  Not the kind to scream through a headset.

  Yeah, that had raised an eyebrow.

  But she’d seen, in a horrifying split second, Ford’s death played out right there on the green screen and—

  Well, she’d screamed.

  And he’d lived.

  But once again her emotions did an end run around her sanity and took her out at her knees.

  She just had to stop caring so much.

  Thankfully, her CO had said nothing, even after Ford landed safely on the chopper. Even after she’d slipped off the headset and left the command center, walking through the gangways to the nearest head.

  And quietly, violently lost it. Braced her hands against the stall.

  Oh, she was pitiful. Because she cared for them all—Nez, the brooding, dark Navajo Master Chief who had tossed his law degree to become a SEAL, following in the heroic military tradition of his great-grandfather Charlie Nez, a code talker.

  Sonny, the Italian from Chicago whose real name was Roger or something ordinary. But he’d earned the mafioso moniker with his dark looks and charming ways, and apparently, he’d done a tour in Sicily when he’d been a corpsman, before trying for the SEALs. Which put him as one of the oldest tadpoles in BUD/S but earned him the respect of the team.

  Sometimes it just took time to stir up the courage to reach for something els
e. Or maybe just stand up for what you wanted.

  Like Leviticus. Levi. The Rabbi, although the guy didn’t have a hint of Jewish ancestry. A blond Viking, he’d grown up in some religious pocket of conservative Minnesota. But he knew what he believed and managed not to adopt the rather colorful language of the teams. Usually. But maybe that didn’t matter as much as the fact he didn’t hang out at any of the hot spots to pick up frog hogs.

  Although, as far as she knew, Ford also opted out of the late-night adventures of some of the other frogmen from the base, from Teams One, Five, and Seven. No, Ford was quiet and most likely to be found working out or competing in some iron man event or on a forty-mile bike ride.

  And then there was Trini. As in Trinidad. As in the big Trinidadian from east Texas who came from a family so large they’d taken up their own section of bleachers when he’d earned his Budweiser. That kind of family love sent her into hives. She’d politely declined the offer to attend their family celebration.

  Kenny C was actually named Colton. He hailed from East Tennessee, and about a year after she’d attached to the team, she screwed up the courage to ask.

  Kenny Chesney. Right. Because that made sense.

  And finally Cruz, aka Fiesta, a name he rightly earned for his love of hosting all the post-deployment bashes, as well as every other team gig.

  Like the one tonight, a week after they’d arrived home.

  The one she was apparently going to miss because of her stupid rattletrap car, stuck with a flat tire in the driveway of her bungalow in sunny San Diego.

  Scarlett stepped on the lug wrench, putting her entire weight on it, bouncing in hopes it would work the nut free.

  The wrench jerked away from the nut, spinning out, and of course, she fell, stumbled back, and like the not-Navy-SEAL that she was, she landed in the grass.

  Her stiff, dying grass, thanks to the water shortage. Even her palm tree in the front yard drooped, and it was only late April. Overhead, the blue sky was cloudless, and her American flag hung limp and listless.

  She lay back in the grass of her tiny, almost ten-by-ten yard and shaded her eyes. Maybe she should stay right here. It wasn’t like she was really on the team. She was an Operations Specialist. Technically, an operations com technician, although she’d trained for her communications position and was one of the few women who was attached to CSST—a Combat Service Support Team.

  But the Navy had opened up spec ops positions in the last year, and sure, women had failed BUD/S, but what if she didn’t try out to be a SEAL but Combat-SAR as a rescue swimmer?

  She’d go in after the team if and when they ended up in the drink.

  Then she wouldn’t have to sit two hundred or more miles away watching through a green screen as her team risked their lives.

  She could be the one bringing them home. Actually be on their team.

  She liked the sound of that.

  Anything to stop herself from screaming through the radio.

  Liked it so much, she’d put her package in to cross rate. Now she just had to take her PRT—Physical Readiness Test— and qualify.

  Fifty push-ups, sixty sit-ups, five pull-ups, five-hundred-yard swim, four twenty-five-yard underwater swims, and a two-hundred-yard buddy tow.

  She hadn’t quite figured out how to train for that one. Not without alerting the team to her aspirations.

  Maybe she’d tell them after she passed her PRT next week.

  But she wasn’t going anywhere anytime if she didn’t get the lug nut off.

  She rolled over and got up, looked at her stupid car parked in the hot, cracked driveway, the ten-year-old Ford Escape she’d purchased for two grand. She didn’t drive it often—mostly biked the 2.3 miles to the San Diego naval base. But she needed it for days like this when she had to drive all the way out to Coronado.

  Well, she didn’t have to. Probably, they wouldn’t even miss her.

  Ford might, but he’d barely talked to her since arriving back to the San Antonio. He had a cracked rib from the force of the shot and spent a couple days in sick bay, vomiting up blood.

  He’d slept nearly the entire flight home in the C-130. And at the base, while others had family waiting for them, he’d gotten on his motorcycle, still parked in the lot near the cage where the team stored their gear.

  She knew because she took an Uber home, no one to greet her either.

  In fact, she still hadn’t received a return call from her mother.

  She glanced at the flattened tire of the Escape, squashed right down to the rim. And that wasn’t the only issue—when she’d tried to turn the car over, the battery didn’t even tick.

  Dead battery, blown tire, and who knew if those were the last of the problems.

  She opened up the back hatch and pulled out the taco salad she’d made—silly her. Cruz always had a spread that rivaled the best Mexican food joint, only his fajitas, chalupas, and especially the margaritas were authentic—and he even made her a virgin variety. The man was a Hispanic Gordon Ramsay.

  She tucked the salad under her arm and headed toward the house, pulling out her cell phone. She let herself inside, thankful for the air conditioning. When she toed off her flip-flops, her feet cooled against the Saltillo tile flooring that covered the entire house.

  Her house.

  Tiny—a minuscule seven hundred fifty square foot, one bedroom—but she’d bought it at a steal and fixed it up with her own two hands. She’d personally not only laid the tile but painted the ancient 1968 original-to-the-house cupboards, added hardware, and even remodeled the bathroom. She could turn a wrench with the best of them.

  Just not, apparently, unscrew a rusty lug nut to save her life.

  The call rang once, twice, and she was about to hang up when someone—not her mother—picked up.

  “What?”

  “Why are you answering my mother’s phone?” Oh, she didn’t mean it quite that way, it was just…well, she’d never liked her mother’s current boyfriend, even if he had been around for nearly six years. Or was Gunnar already seven? She should have brought her half brother something from her deployment, but what could she get from Bahrain for a little boy?

  Yeah, nothing she could think of.

  “Sorry, Axel,” she said quickly after he paused. The last thing she needed was him hanging up.

  Maybe rounding on her mother.

  “Is she around?”

  “When did you get back?”

  She could imagine him. Long, greasy hair, indistinguishable prison tats up his arms, the smell of beer on his breath. Yeah, her mother knew how to pick them. “A week ago.”

  He made a noise she couldn’t interpret. “She’s not…uh…well, you talk to her.”

  Scarlett frowned, but headed to the fridge to put the salad away, turning the call on speaker. “Mom?”

  A sigh, then, “Scar? Is that you, baby?”

  Oh no. Slurred voice. High pitched. And her mother hadn’t called her Scar since…well, since she was ten, maybe. “Yeah, Mom, it’s me. We got back from our deployment and I wanted to see if you were…well, how are you?”

  “Where did you go?”

  “My deployment. Remember—eight months on a ship?” She, like the rest of Team Three, wasn’t allowed to tell where she’d been exactly, but, “I was in the Middle East.”

  “The Middle East. Why would anyone go there?”

  Huh. “Because I’m in the Navy. And that’s where… Mom, are you okay?”

  “Oh, I’m fabulous. Gary and I are going dancing tonight over at the Oakhill Supper Club.”

  Scarlett stilled. Gary? “Mom…Gary—he…is he with you? Now?”

  “No. He said…he’ll be back. Axel…find my shoes. We’re going for a drive. For ice cream!”

  Scarlett’s throat tightened. “Mom, where is Gunnar?”

  Silence. “Who?”

  “Mom? Gunnar. My little brother?”

  A funny laugh emerged through the phone, one that reached into Scarlett’s gut and twist
ed.

  “Can I talk to Axel?” She pressed her hand to her chest.

  The sound turned muffled, and Axel apparently regained the phone.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s not a good day, Scarlett. She’s…she’s been in a lot of pain since the car accident—”

  “The car accident?”

  “Yeah. Totaled the wagon five months ago and twisted her back. The doc gave her some pain meds—”

  “And you let her take them? Have you lost your mind?” Scarlett slid onto a chair. “She’s an addict—and she was…she was doing so well…” She cupped her hand over her face. “Where’s Gunnar?”

  “He’s fine. At school.”

  Scarlett tried to picture it—Axel as the only semi-sober adult in the house—and went a little cold.

  “Call back tomorrow. It might be a better day.” He hung up.

  She sat there, struggling to breathe.

  Oh. Help.

  She covered her face with both hands now. No, she and Sammy-Jo Hathaway weren’t exactly close—hadn’t been since Scarlett left home at seventeen. But she still cared what happened to her.

  Still sent checks home every month.

  Which clearly Axel was cashing. And probably using for his own fix.

  Scarlett stood up, not sure where to start sorting through her options, when the doorbell rang.

  Her doorbell?

  She had neighbors, sure, but hadn’t met even one of them.

  It was Girl Scout Cookie season, however, so—

  Ford stood at her door.

  She just blinked at him, not sure the heat hadn’t gone to her head.

  He wore a plain black T-shirt, a pair of cargo shorts, and flip-flops. Without his tactical gear on, he seemed less overwhelming, but not much, that shirt outlining his off-hour activities. He hadn’t shaved today—but clearly had whisked off the beard he’d grown during deployment, his whiskers short and dark. And he’d gotten a haircut. High and tight, dark and precise. A pair of sunglasses sat upside down behind his neck and he looked at her with those pale green eyes, and oh my, even out of his uniform, in person, the man could reduce her to babbles and incoherent stammering.

  This was why she did better over comms. She averted her eyes and spotted his motorcycle sitting on the driveway. She opened the screen door, still not looking quite at him.