High-Risk Investigation by Jane M. Choate

Author:Jane M. Choate [Choate, Jane M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-11-15T16:04:13+00:00

ELEVEN

Nicco regarded Scout with a mix of admiration and concern. She didn’t back down—he ought to know—and she’d go after the truth no matter the danger. While he applauded her resolve, he worried that she didn’t seem to understand just how close they’d come to dying tonight.

If the shooter’s bullet had come even a hair closer, Scout would be lying on a slab in the morgue right about now.

Her steadfastness was one of the things he respected about her, but on the battlefield, arrogance could prove fatal.

He’d seen buddies who believed they were invincible mowed down by a spray of bullets that did not discriminate between courage and foolhardiness.

He sat in the room’s one chair and pulled her onto his lap. She was so tiny that it was no hardship to hold her. Beneath the smell of smoke, the scent of some flowery shampoo drifted from her hair.

“It’s all right. We’ll get through this.” He tightened his arms around her. “You need some sleep.”

“I can’t sleep,” she said. “Not after this.” She drew back a few inches so that her face was tilted to his. “Before...everything...you were going to tell me something.”

Nicco didn’t spend a lot of time in the past. Remembering took him down a rabbit hole that had no escape, but maybe sharing those memories with Scout would help both of them.

“An order came down to pick up a reporter at the local command post. I fought against it, saying it jeopardized the operation, but nobody paid any attention.

“Turns out the reporter was okay. Smart and savvy and pretty, a lot like you.” He thought of Ruth, her intelligence, her integrity. Against his better judgment, he’d been drawn to her, and the attraction was returned. Pretty soon, the two of them were sharing smiles and small jokes. “We started talking about a future.

“And then it happened.”

“What?” So immersed was he in the pain-filled memories, Scout’s voice reached him as though from a great distance.

“Things hadn’t gone the way they were planned...” And when had they ever? “...and the asset was still with us, rather than being exfiltrated. There were rumors that our camp would be raided by an insurgent group wanting to take him out. I knew I had to get Ruth out of there and sent her, along with two of my unit for protection, back to headquarters. We didn’t know until it was too late that the road they’d taken was riddled with IEDs.”

He told the story without any inflection, repeating it by rote. That was the only way he could get through it.

The steady hum of the room’s AC unit provided background noise for the recitation of facts.

“An IED went off, killing Ruth and my men.” Grief had consumed him, scraping at his heart with razor-sharp teeth.

He’d witnessed death before. Few soldiers in a combat zone remained untouched by the useless waste of life that was war. But Ruth’s had reached down deep and squeezed the life from him.

“You loved her, but she’s not gone.

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