And if at some time in his life, he had been both.
“Dinner!” A man called cheerfully. And the men started toward the tables with food spread out on them. Angie followed and Mac materialized beside her.
“Sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. “No apology necessary,” she said. “I know where you are. And I know you’re never very far. As for the asshole? He deserved far more than a few harsh truths.”
Mac smiled at her. It was a slow, sexy smile. “You’re not afraid of me,” he observed.
She shook her head. “Not yet, anyway,” she said, and grinned at him.
He just shook his head and laughed.
Dinner was good: barbequed pork, a bunch of sides, cornbread. She wasn’t sure how they’d done the cornbread, but she could see the barbeque they’d built back behind the tables. Big slabs of meat were still grilling back there. She ducked behind the tables to talk to the man who had greeted them when they arrived — Rand.
“So how did you do the cornbread?” she asked.
He grinned at her, and showed off his barbeque grill, and the oven made of coals underneath it. She snapped some photographs of the setup and of him. He didn’t seem to mind. He answered her questions about how much food was required to feed all these people. She never ran out of questions. When the line shortened, she thanked him and went to fill her plate. Mac had waited for her. They found seats at the table with Ken Bryson.
“So how did you know my full name?” Mac asked him, as if it were no big deal. But Angie thought it might matter more to him than he was letting on.
“Checked you out,” Bryson said. “Wanted to make sure you could carry your own weight out here.”
Mac nodded.
“And?” he said. He turned and called out to Rand, “This barbeque is excellent,” he said sincerely. “And I’ve lived in places where barbeque is king.”
“Thanks!” Rand replied. “There’s plenty.”
Mac turned back to Bryson. “And what did they tell you?”
“Said you could take care of yourself,” he said. “That you’d do whatever it took to get the job done.”
“You OK with that?” Mac asked.
Bryson looked around at the men eating at the tables, at his employees helping with the meal. He looked back at Mac. “I’m OK with that,” he said.
Angie took a deep breath. Men, she thought suddenly. She’d never been in an all-male group, because she immediately changed the dynamic by being a part of it. Right? And co-ed groups, even dominated by men, were different.
But this group? Maybe because she was so out-numbered, or because she was really outside of the group itself, but this was as close to an all-male group as she’d ever see. And it was as tense and volatile as she’d thought it could be. It was as if violence could break out at any moment.
They are sorting out the pecking order, she thought. Because adding Mac to the mix, changed the order of things. So, it’s even more volatile now.
Weird, because as a news photog she was around men a lot. She knew how to handle them. She’d demonstrated that last weekend with Norton, and she knew Mac had been complimentary about her to Janet and to her own boss. But this? This was different.
These men wanted to prove themselves. They wanted to be alpha. They weren’t. Would never be. Bryson? Mac. Maybe Craig Anderson, although he hid a lot of himself. Rand? They knew who they were and what they were capable of. Being vets was a part of that, although it wasn’t the only way a man could test himself. But these others? They seemed soft. Nice guys, she thought from the earlier conversations. At least they had been. But they’d convinced themselves they wanted to be something else — that they were something else and deserved more than what they were getting.
And that’s why they were out here. To test themselves. To prove something to themselves.
Angie shivered. They were dangerous, she thought. Dangerous because they were unbalanced. Mac, Anderson and Bryson’s team were dangerous men. They’d all seen combat, she thought. They were capable, trained, disciplined. But these others were dangerous because they weren’t trained or disciplined. They were slowly coming apart, and they might do anything. She had read once that most cops would rather face a trained gunman than an amateur with a gun, because you never knew what an amateur might do. And that’s what this Sensei was doing. He was giving guns to amateurs who were now over-confident, and becoming more and more unbalanced. She wondered if that was deliberate? Was there a method to this? To create a rabble of white men with grievances and guns? She’d have to bring that up with Mac.
She looked around at these men again. A bunch of men with grievances, guns and something to prove. They scared her. But if they thought they could prove themselves by besting Mac?
They were dumber than doorposts, the lot of them.
Chapter 19
Most of the men stayed up late, sitting by the campfire, telling stories, talking guns. Mac sat with them and listened. No one challenged him or questioned him again. The smart ones were wary of him, he thought. The dumb ones were resentful. Hopefully that would hold them at bay for the few days they were together. He’d hate to have to beat the shit out of one of them to prove something.
Wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that. Once he would have been eager to do it. Might even have sought it out. He thought about the man who had questioned him. He could have used that, he realized. Could have turned it into a physical thing. Taken him down. He’d done it two years ago in El Paso chasing Howard Parker’s past.
And if he’d done it here, no one would challenge him again. He had done it
