Striking Distance

Javier did not want to go there.

“I can’t change what happened. I made the call, and I can’t do a damned thing about how it turned out. Sitting in some stuffy office crying to some therapist who’s never been in combat is not going to change things either.” Javier turned to face Nate. “I’ve been in and out of combat for fourteen years. I know what I can handle, man. I don’t need their help. I’m not some fucking pussy.”

“Are you saying that JG, Wilson, Ross, Zimmerman—all the guys who are getting treatment are pussies?”

“No.” ?Carajo! That wasn’t what he’d meant. “They’re good operators, hard chargers, hard-core team guys. They get the job done.”

“What’s different about you? Why does it make you a pussy if you get help, but not the rest of the team? Oh, I get it. You’re the Cobra. You get within striking distance of the enemy, and it’s over. But if it all goes sideways and the wrong men die, you don’t need help like the rest of us mere mortals.”

“Knock it the fuck off, West.”

Nate came face-to-face with him. “I know something’s not right, and the fact that you won’t even talk about it with me scares the hell out of me. A bar fight, Corbray? Yeah, I know about that, too. You’re not facing charges only because the man you punched happened to be another operator. He had too much respect for you to turn your ass in.”

Okay, this shit needed to end now.

“You want to know what’s wrong, man? People keep getting in my face, pushing me, acting like I’m going to fall the fuck apart. But I haven’t. I won’t. They were talking about giving me a training job.”

“What’s wrong with that? Every kid who had the chance to learn from you would be lucky because he’d be learning from the best of the best. What you’d teach them would save lives, ensure the success of their missions.”

Nate didn’t get it. He just didn’t understand.

“Combat is what I do, man. It’s what I’ve done for fourteen years.”

“Maybe fourteen years is enough.” At the look on Javier’s face, Nate let out a frustrated gust of breath. “You know what this is really about? It’s about you believing that you have to be perfect just to be as good as everyone else.”

Javier let out a laugh. “Is that supposed to make sense?”

Nate jabbed a finger toward Javier’s chest. “Somewhere inside, you’re still the Puerto Rican gangbanger who’s still trying to prove to his parents and himself that he’s not the loser they thought he was.”

Javier took a step toward Nate. “Watch it, man.”

But there was only concern on Nate’s face. “Are you going to hit me now?”

Javier turned away from him, shocked at the sheer force of the rage surging through him, his heart a jackhammer in his chest, his face burning. He drew a deep breath, willed his fists to unclench. He grabbed his towel and headed for the door. “I think it’s time Laura and I headed back to Denver.”

“You just got here. You’re going to run away rather than talk to me?” There was no condemnation in Nate’s voice, just disappointment. “Laura’s in the stables with Megan, but give them some time. Megan knows more about what Laura has been through than the rest of us.”

Those words and the dark tone of Nate’s voice stopped Javier in his tracks. He turned to face his friend, some of his anger bleeding away.

“What are you telling me?”

* * *

LAURA PATTED THE mare’s velvety muzzle, fighting to hold back her tears. “I just want my life back. Some days I feel like this will never end, like the damage that bastard did will define my life forever.”

She was thinking not only of threats against her life, but of Klara, too—the little girl she’d been forced to bring into the world and wanted desperately to protect.

Megan reached out, put a hand on her shoulder. “I want to tell you something.”

As they walked to the next stall and the next, Megan told Laura how she’d been only fourteen and in juvenile detention for shoplifting when a group of guards started taking turns raping her. The assaults had happened almost daily and had gone on for weeks, until she’d told a member of the facility’s medical staff. But by then she’d been so broken that she’d spent the next decade fighting heroin addiction.

Laura felt sick for her—men brutalizing a child like that. Still, she would never have imagined that the polished young woman who walked beside her had been a victim of something so violent or a heroin addict. “I’m so sorry, Megan.”

“I was busted for heroin possession and went to prison, where I found out I was pregnant. They took Emily away from me an hour after she was born. I lost her to Child Protective Services. It took a long time and a lot of hard work to get her back.” Megan’s voice quavered. “But now I have Emily. I have Nate. I love my life. I’m happier than I ever thought I could be. And one day you’ll feel that way, too. They’ll catch these bastards, and you’ll be able to put all of this behind you.”

Megan couldn’t know she was treading on Laura’s deepest pain—giving birth to a baby in captivity and having it taken from her.

Tears blurred Laura’s vision, her throat tight. “Thank you. I hope you’re right. The men who hurt you . . . I need to know. Did they pay?”

“Yes. Three are dead. One is serving life in prison, and he won’t be raping anyone else. Marc shot him when he tried to kill Sophie, severed his spine.”

The same men had tried to kill Sophie?

Why did Laura know nothing about this?

You’ve never really taken time to get to know your coworkers. That’s why.

It was a mistake she intended to remedy—as soon as this nightmare was over.

“I know you must feel alone in this, but you’re not.” Megan smiled “Jack, Nate, and I want to be here for you. Your I-Team friends are here for you. They really care about you, Laura—Sophie, Kat, Joaquin, Matt, Alex. All of them.”

Laura felt touched to the core that Megan had trusted her with all of this. It couldn’t have been easy. “Thank you.”

They finished their tour of the stables, and then it was time for Megan to meet Emily’s bus at the gate.

Laura found her way back inside the house and headed up to her room, unable to take her mind off what Megan had told her, her head aching again, her body chilled from spending so much time in the stables. She was thinking about taking a hot bath when she remembered there was a sauna off the gym. She changed into her robe, grabbed a towel, and headed downstairs. She was passing the library when she heard it.

Guitar music.

She stopped, listened.

It sounded like classical Spanish guitar, the music darkly passionate with a melancholy feel that put an ache in her chest. It started slowly, then gathered momentum, notes spilling from the strings in a rich torrent, braced from beneath by deep, powerful chords that sounded like a pulse or a heartbeat. She pushed open the library door a crack—and saw Javier.

He sat on a sofa opposite a lit fireplace. His eyes were closed, his brow furrowed, his head bowed slightly, guitar in his arms. The fingers of his left hand moved over the frets, while those of his right moved over the strings, rich sound resonating from the polished wood. Then his hands fell still, and the music stopped.

He was looking at her. “Laura.”

Forgetting that she was wearing only her bathrobe, she walked over to sit on a plush sofa across from him. “I didn’t know you played guitar. Please. Don’t stop.”

His gaze fixed on hers, he began to play again from the beginning. Music filled the library’s two floors, its emotion drawing Laura in, holding her. How he could be responsible for all those notes, all that sound, she didn’t know. His eyes slowly drifted shut as the music began to build, his brow furrowing, the intensity on his handsome face growing as he gave himself over to his playing.

Laura had seen that naked passion on his face before, only then he’d been holding her, kissing her, making love to her. He’d been . . .