Tanner snorted. “Yeah, I don’t see my technique working out nearly as well at the Galleria.”
“I see your point.” Zarina stopped and glanced back at the store they’d just left. “I wonder if I should have exchanged the sleeping bag and flashlight for more of those pajamas. They’re so comfortable. I could wear them around my apartment in DC in the winter.”
He stifled a groan as an image of Zarina and her pj’s flashed through his head. He immediately wished he hadn’t let his head go there, since it was damn tough walking with a boner. Shit. What the hell was it about her that got him hard at the drop of a hat?
Tanner was so focused on thinking about anything other than Zarina romping around a campfire in her pajamas that he nearly missed someone calling his name. When the man’s voice finally broke through, he was surprised to realize he recognized it. But he had to be wrong. He hadn’t heard that voice in years.
Sure he must be imagining things, Tanner stopped and turned around to see his old army buddy standing ten feet away from him on the sidewalk. His friend looked just as shocked as Tanner.
“Tanner, is that you?”
Tanner nodded. “Ryan?”
His friend still looked the same as he had when Tanner had last seen him the day he’d gotten out of the Rangers and walked away from his old life. Ryan’s blond hair was even cropped close enough to still pass army regulations. Only Ryan wasn’t in the military anymore. He’d been in the process of bailing at the same time as Tanner had.
But while Ryan might look the same on the outside, there was a scar on his jaw and lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. His nose looked like it had been broken a few times, then poorly set as well.
Tanner wasn’t sure which one of them moved first—or maybe they both moved forward at the same time—but the next thing he knew, they were pulling each other in for a man hug that made him wonder why he hadn’t worked harder to stay in touch with his friend.
“Damn, you look good,” Ryan said as he pulled away. “Are you bigger than you used to be? It looks like you’re four or five inches taller than you were the last I saw you.”
Since he’d never run into anyone who’d known him before those scientists had turned him into a hybrid, Tanner never had to explain how he’d added the extra inches and more than fifty pounds of muscle. Now he’d had to do it twice in one day. He laughed it off.
“I guess I was still growing when you knew me, so I might be a little bigger than you remember,” he said casually.
Ryan frowned and opened his mouth, no doubt to call BS on that. Time to change the subject.
“You look good, too, man,” Tanner said, interrupting whatever Ryan had been about to say. “It looks like you could do a fifteen-mile ruck march with no problem. Makes it even harder to believe you got out.”
“Yeah, I intended to do my twenty years and retire with full benefits,” his friend admitted. “That all changed after our last deployment to Afghanistan.”
Tanner couldn’t do anything but nod. Ryan was right. Being in the Rangers wasn’t the same after all those guys in their platoon had died. The battalion had arranged a solemn ceremony and handed out a lot of posthumous awards, then expected everyone to move on. But Tanner hadn’t been able to do that. So instead of reenlisting like he’d planned, he’d gotten out a few months after getting back from Afghanistan.
He’d honestly thought Ryan would stay in, though. While Ryan hadn’t been unaffected by their fellow soldiers’ deaths, he hadn’t seemed as traumatized as Tanner. But maybe Tanner had been wrong about that.
Beside Tanner, Zarina softly cleared her throat, reminding him of her presence. He cringed and gave her an apologetic look before making introductions.
“Ryan Westbrook, Zarina Sokolov,” he said, then stopped as he realized he had no idea how to introduce her. He obviously couldn’t say she was the Russian geneticist who’d attempted to keep a psychopath from turning him into a hybrid. But he also couldn’t say she was his girlfriend, because he had no idea if she’d ever want to be described that way. Camping buddy didn’t hit the right note either, though.
Finally, he punted the ball and finished with the most truthful answer he could come up with. “She’s a very important person in my life.”
Ryan’s gaze went from Tanner to Zarina and back again, as if he was envisioning them together in the biblical sense. Ryan had never been good at biting his tongue, but at least this once, his friend didn’t say anything stupid.
“Very important person, huh?” he murmured as he shook Zarina’s hand. “Something tells me there’s an interesting story there, but I’ll keep my curiosity to myself for now. Regardless, it’s nice to meet you.”
Zarina hit Ryan with the kind of smile that never failed to make Tanner weak in the knees. He was relieved to see it didn’t have the same effect on Ryan.
“Nice meeting you, too,” she said. “From the conversation the two of you just had, something tells me you and Tanner were in the army together.”
Ryan nodded. “Nearly seven years, all in the same Ranger squad. Which is rather remarkable, since the army likes to move people around just for the fun of it. Tanner and I did three tours in Iraq and another two in Afghanistan. Saw a lot of shit, pardon my French.”
Zarina laughed. “Your French is fine. I’m Russian. We use that kind of French all the time.”
“Russian, huh? I thought I detected an accent.” Ryan threw Tanner a sideways glance. “So, what’s the deal? Is there some kind of James Bond angle going on here, or did she just buy you
