* * *
The C-17 touched down with a thump and whine of the engines.
“We’re home, buddy,” Geo said wearily to Bosch, who stood up in his crate before performing a perfect downward dog.
“Oh, my God, kill me now,” Lennox groaned as he limped toward the open ramp at the rear of the plane. “Everything hurts.”
Geo glared at him for a moment, then shrugged. For once he agreed with the prick—everything hurt. He fought not to groan himself, but the hours of sitting in a cramped webbed seat got the best of him.
“Damn those Greenie Beanies,” he muttered, bending stiffly to unlatch the door to Bosch’s crate and snap a leash onto his harness. “Those are some tough-ass motherfuckers.”
And he was getting too old for this shit.
The hazy Coronado sky was a beautiful sight. At the base of the ramp, the ragged platoon gathered around Alex. “Well, we got our butts kicked, fellas,” he rasped. “Those dudes hiked us into the ground. Fuckin’ embarrassing.”
“Not embarrassing, more like humiliating,” someone else grumbled.
It was true. The Army Special Forces, or Green Berets, were known for their brutal ruck marches, their ability to hike for days with heavy combat loads. When an SF friend of Alex’s had challenged him to bring his platoon and join them deep in the forests of West Virginia, the SEALs had been enthusiastic, and confident they’d at least be able to keep up.
Instead, most of them had struggled even to finish.
By the second day of the four-day ruck, Geo’s heels were so blistered he’d had to cut out the backs of his boots to ease the agony. SEALs were popping ibuprofen like candy, their self-confidence growing dimmer by the day. At the end of the march, egos in tatters, they’d had to admit defeat.
“Let’s see you fast-rope onto a moving ship in high seas now, asshole,” Alex had growled to his friend, a Latino guy who’d barely seemed to have broken a sweat the entire march.
By the time everyone had showered, had their wounds patched up and taken a long nap, all was forgiven.
Now, safely back in Coronado, Alex dismissed them for a forty-eight-hour liberty. “Rest up,” he said. “Next week we’re headed for Langley and the CIA workshop that got rescheduled before. After that, well, you’ll see.”
He grinned wolfishly to a chorus of answering hoots, but instead of excitement, all Geo felt was weariness.
More of the same. It was all just more of the same.
And he’d lost Lani over it.
The FNGs would offload Bosch’s crate and most of the gear, so Geo caught a ride to the kennel and gratefully handed him off to one of the staff, saying, “He could use a good bath and a brush. It’s been a long week for this guy.”
Instead of going on the ruck, Bosch had stayed behind to work with a couple of the new SF handlers in order to show them exactly what a well-trained K9 could do. The handlers had had nothing but the highest of praise for him.
After getting him settled, he ruffled Bosch’s ears with a promise to come check on him in the morning, and then he headed for the team quarterdeck to downstage his personal gear and clean his weapon. He winced at the sight of his blood-stained and ruined boots.
“Fuck you, old man.”
The next equipment cage over, Lennox flipped him off, and Geo desultorily raised his middle finger in return. As he’d expected, the team guys had treated him with a wary caution at first, but as the brutal exercise wore on, they’d thawed little by little, until by the end, everything was more or less back to normal.
Which was the reason Alex had arranged that particular training trip, he suspected.
Yeah, I owe you a big one, Master Chief.
Even he and Lennox had reached a sort of uneasy truce, which was a relief in and of itself. After all, they’d be deploying together by the end of the year.
Once his weapon was cleaned and secured in his locker, then and only then did Geo allow himself to turn on his phone. He held his breath as it booted up—which seemed to take for-fucking-ever—but once it did, not one of the notifications that scrolled past was the one he was looking for.
He closed his eyes. A little over three weeks now, and not a word.
How long should he wait? The more time went on, the more he started to doubt himself, to doubt that he’d done the right thing in walking away from Lani that night. He’d thought to give her a little space, a little time to think, and then wait for her to text him wanting to talk.
But she hadn’t.
Geo blew out a ragged breath. Had he only imagined the feelings he’d sensed from her? He knew where she stood on his career, and if she’d sat him down and told him flat-out she couldn’t do it, he would’ve respected that. Hated it, mourned it, but understood it.
Instead, he’d been left in some kind of hellish limbo, not sure if he was supposed to be trying to move on or not.
Standing and shouldering his backpack, he called goodnight to the other guys and headed out, squinting into the late-afternoon sun. Damn. The week at Fort Bragg and then the week in West Virginia had kept him busy, but now an endlessly lonely forty-eight hours stretched out before him.
His phone buzzed with another notification, and Geo glanced at it before rolling his eyes. Well, apparently the next two days didn’t have to be lonely: Been a long time since I’ve fucked your sweet ass. How ’bout it?
Ash had helpfully attached a pic of his erection, in case Geo missed the point.
With a laughing sigh, he texted back his regrets. Another time, hot stuff. I wouldn’t be good company tonight.
An almost immediate reply. You know sex doesn’t have to be on the table, G. Nick and I are always here if you just wanna talk.
He texted back a kissy-face emoji before putting his phone away, thinking that he’d go back to the barracks and grab a shower before seeing if he could take Ari for ice cream. Thank God that night at the game ended up being the breakthrough Renae had been waiting for.
“She’s opening up to her therapist more and more,” Renae said tearfully one night over FaceTime. “It’s like a floodgate. She’s held so much in, and she’s been blaming herself the whole time. I had no idea. None.”
With all his heart, Geo hoped their little family was finally on its way to healing.
As he rounded the corner toward where he’d parked his motorcycle, a slight movement to the left caught his eye. There, parked at the curb, was a little blue Nissan, one that looked a lot—his heart gave a twinge—like Lani’s car.
Great. Now he was gonna see her everywhere.
“Hey, sailor.”
The sound of a familiar husky voice had Geo snapping his gaze toward his bike, his breath catching in disbelief. Lani stood next to it, fingers twisted tightly together, a tentative smile on her lips. She wore a short denim skirt, some cute cowboy boots, and—his eyes widened—his fucking Metallica shirt!