Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(116)
Who in the hell did he expect to eat that heap of calories? While Rawls might manage to wade his way through one of the plates—eventually—his woman ate like a picky bird. She’d polish off a tenth of that mound at best.
When Rawls stepped over the bench seat and sat next to Faith, settling so close to her they were practically sealed together from hip to shoulder, Mac shook his head in disgust and lifted the mug to his mouth. Another good man down for the count. This falling in love shit had become an epidemic.
“Benji,” Amy said to his right as she neatly sliced her son’s fried egg into pieces. “If you spent half the time working on your breakfast as you do talking, you’d be finished eating by now.”
Her youngest, sitting across the table next to Cosky, turned to scowl at her. “But Mom, it’s important. I’m helping him get a dog.”
A dog?
Mac caught Cosky’s dry expression. Yeah, Cosky wasn’t the one interested in dogs.
He studiously ignored the heat blasting him from hip to shoulder thanks to the damn woman sitting so close to him. Why the hell couldn’t she have chosen a different table, hell, a different room—although he suspected a different cafeteria wouldn’t have lessened the effect she had on him.
Suddenly Cosky’s amused voice echoed in his mind . . . haunting him.
“Don’t think we haven’t noticed how you look at her, Mac. Fuck—you look at her the same way Rawls looks at his doctor.”
He shuddered and banished the memory of Zane and Cosky’s uproarious laughter when he’d denied having feelings for the woman.
Just because they’d formed their own personal *-whipped club didn’t mean he had any interest in joining them. His hand tightening around his mug, he avoided the woman on his right by concentrating furiously on the couple across from him.
Cosky and Kait sat directly across from him, while Marion was a bit more to the left. Empty plates were pushed to the middle of the table and half-full coffee cups sat in front of them. Their heads were tilted together as they quietly discussed something—probably wedding plans. Assuming they managed to extract themselves from this Goddamn mess and waltz into a new life together.
With a sour shake of his head, Mac glared down into the black depths of his coffee as though the bitter liquid held all the answers to their current predicament.
The failure the night before had been a blow. No, he hadn’t expected much, considering the intel had come from a Goddamn ghost. But there must have been some hidden kernel of hope lodged deep in his moronic brain, because the frustration and disappointment when the insertion hadn’t yielded even one f*cking clue was so thick he could almost taste the bitterness on his tongue.
“You look like someone just shot your best coon hound,” Rawls said, pointing his fork toward Mac.
While Rawls’s head was turned away, Faith stealthily forked three slices of bacon on top of his plate.
Mac watched her fork an egg over as well and considered ratting her out on general principle. But hell, his lieutenant had to know she couldn’t eat that mountain of food. And from the way he’d demolished half his plate within seconds, maybe he’d planned on using her leftovers as a second course anyway.
With a grumpy yawn, he scrubbed a hand down his face and grimaced. “We need to recover that damn prototype of Dr. Ansell’s. It’s too dangerous to leave in enemy hands.” He paused to scowl. “And I’m getting damn tired of coming up empty-handed.”
He didn’t glance at Amy, but he could clearly imagine her tight, haunted expression. This moratorium on progress hadn’t just bit them squarely in the ass. It had bit Amy and her kids as well. As it stood, based on the doc’s latest round of tests on Brendan and Benji, Amy’s kids were well and truly f*cked. That shit they’d been injected with wasn’t coming out anytime soon.
The combined pressure of frustration and fury pushed against his chest, threatening to smother him.
“At least we know who has it and who’s behind all this, which is more than we knew a couple days ago.” Cosky straightened, shooting him an undefinable look. “We’ve got actual names now.”
Rawls shot his buddy a surprised look. Mac knew just how he felt.
“Yeah, we got names”—he reminded Cosky sourly—“from a ghost.”
Cosky shrugged. “Rawls says the names are legit. Wolf says they’re legit. The lab, with the missing scientists, was exactly where they said it would be. That’s good enough for me.”
“James Link is our best bet,” Amy suddenly said from beside him. “Manheim will be harder to reach. He’s got the security to go with all that money. Link’s smaller potatoes. He’s accessible.”
He was also the current CEO of Dynamic Solutions. If anyone had a shot at helping Amy’s kids, it would be that tech-savvy company. Mac could hardly blame her for fixing her sights on the opportunity with the best odds of curing her kids.
Zane straddled the aluminum bench next to Mac and took a sip of his coffee only to blanch and gag. “Son of a bitch.”
What the hell? Mac watched his lieutenant commander’s face turn green.
“Beth tossing her cookies again?” Cosky asked with dry amusement.
With a grimace, Zane stood back up. “I need something to settle her stomach. Coffee seems to be her biggest trigger.” He paused to scowl, a world of frustration on his face.