Striking Distance

CHAPTER 3

JAVIER SAT ON the back deck with a bottle of stout, washing down a lunch of Jack West’s three-alarm chili with good, cold beer. The mountains rose all around him, stretching their jagged white-capped peaks toward an endless blue sky. Nearby, a herd of elk foraged in the snow, a hawk wheeling overhead.

Everything was so beautiful, so peaceful, so quiet.

He and Nate had spent the day driving hay out to snowbound cattle and seeing to the horses. Despite the near-constant ache in his thigh, it had felt good to get physical. Lifting hay bales and trudging through deep snow had gotten his heart pumping and filled his lungs with fresh mountain air. He’d felt alive again, strong. But the best part about it had been working side by side with Nate.

And still something felt . . . wrong.

Javier thrust the feeling aside, refused to let himself go there. If it hadn’t been so cold out, he’d have gone back inside to grab his guitar. He’d been playing a lot since getting wounded. Something about it cleared his mind, helped him focus, gave him an outlet for whatever was gnawing at him.

Behind him, the sliding glass door opened and closed, Nate’s boots crunching in a foot of new snowfall. He shook off a chair and sat beside Javier.

Javier looked over at him. “Nice view.”

“Thanks.” Nate grinned from behind his sunglasses, bundled in a fleece and leather barn jacket, cowboy hat still on his head. “It’s home.”

Javier could see that. Nate belonged here.

Where do you belong?

Why the hell was he asking himself that question? He already knew where he belonged. He belonged downrange with his men.

He took another swig, savoring the bitterness. “Is the fishing good around here?”

“Yeah. Cutthroat trout. Brook trout. Bass.”

“Might have to come back.”

Nate leaned his head back and tilted his hat over his eyes, a grin lurking on his face. “Door’s always open.”

Nate smiled a lot these days. It did Javier good to see him so happy.

Most of the reason for that happiness glanced at them through the sliding glass door, then opened the door a crack, a smile on her pretty face. “I thought I might find the two of you chilling somewhere together. Comfortable?”

Nate raised his head, eyeing his wife from beneath the brim of his hat. “Why don’t you come on over here, sit on my lap, and warm me up, honey?”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll stay inside where it’s warmer. Brrr!” Megan pretended to shiver. “Sophie e-mailed to ask whether she and Marc should bring some elk steaks to share tomorrow.”

“If they want to do that, it’s fine by me, but he’s still not touching the grill.”

Megan ducked back inside, laughing to herself.

Nate looked over at Javier. “Ever tried elk?”

Javier shook his head.

“My brother-in-law goes elk hunting with a crossbow every fall. It’s good eatin’—nice and lean.” Nate took a swallow of his beer. “He and McBride brought down a five-hundred-pound cow this year. That’s what we call female elk, by the way—cows.”

“You’re not letting that go, are you?”

“Nope.”

But Javier was only half-listening, talk of the barbecue putting his mind back on Laura Nilsson. Would she come? Would she recognize him? If she did, would she be glad to see him—or would she feel blindsided?

And what will you say to her?

What could he say to the woman who’d been in his thoughts for so long?

He had no idea.

Emily, Megan’s five-year-old daughter whom Nate had adopted, stuck her blond head out the door, then disappeared inside, her high little voice drifting back to them. “Grandpa Jack, they’re not shoveling. They’re just sitting on their asses like you said.”

“Hey, old man, quit nagging!” Nate shouted toward the door, a grin on his face.

From inside, Javier could just make out Jack’s voice. “Now, Miss Emily, you know there are words that only grown-ups can say, and ass is one of them.”

Javier chuckled. “Your dad is something else.”

“Yeah, he is, and he’s teaching Emily to talk like a soldier.” Nate took another drink. “Truth is, she’s been good for him. He loves that little girl. You should have seen the pride on his face when the adoption was final and her name became Emily West. She and Megan—they’ve helped fill the emptiness my mother’s death left inside him.”

Javier could remember the day Nate’s mother had died. They’d been in Afghanistan, and Nate had gotten a call from his father. She’d passed suddenly and unexpectedly of an aneurysm. Nate never had a chance to say good-bye.

“You thinking of giving Emily a little brother or sister?”

Nate nodded. “Megan applied to law school. If she gets accepted, we might decide to wait till she graduates. If she doesn’t . . . Well, she’ll be pretty disappointed. She wants to help young women who get into trouble. She had a rough life and wants to make sure other girls have a better chance.”

“That’s a worthy goal.” Javier knew next to nothing about Megan, but he didn’t like the idea that she’d had a hard time of it growing up. Whatever her past was, she certainly seemed to have moved beyond it.

“How about you? You ever going to get married again, raise a few kids?”

Javier glared at Nate. “Are you my mother? She asked me the same thing when I was home.”

She wanted him to buy a house somewhere nearby, marry a sweet Puerto Rican wife, and give her more grandkids while she was still alive to enjoy them. But he’d had a wife, and she’d run off with some cabron from Silicon Valley midway through their first married deployment—less than a year after they’d tied the knot. Why would he want to go through that again?

Nate studied him for a moment, then took one last swill. “Well, I guess we’d best get to work if we want to get the patio shoveled in time to get back to the horses.”

It was a big patio with a built-in gas grill, a fire pit, stone benches, a few outdoor propane heaters, and a couple of picnic tables.

Javier got to his feet, pain shooting through his left thigh. “Tell me again why you have barbecues in the middle of the winter, bro?”

Nate looked at him like he was an idiot. “We like steak.”

* * *

LAURA MET SOPHIE in the cafeteria for a late lunch, both of them opting for the salad bar over the burgers. They made their way to a table in the back of the nearly empty room, Laura grabbing a bottle of mineral water on the way.

“I can’t believe the FBI isn’t going to do anything to help you.” Sophie stirred sugar into her iced tea.

“That’s not exactly what they said.” It was close enough from Laura’s point of view, but she was a journalist and had to be fair—even if she was furious. “The special agent in charge—Agent Petras—said they had no evidence that Al-Nassar’s threats were credible or that I was in any danger. He said they were monitoring the situation and that they would act if they found evidence that a threat existed.”

“Having a terrorist leader put a fatwa on your head doesn’t count as credible?” Sophie jabbed her fork into her salad. “Good grief! What does?”

What Al-Nassar had done didn’t constitute a fatwa, but Laura didn’t feel like explaining. Besides, it wasn’t what the FBI agent had said, but how he’d said it.