Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(57)
He took another deep breath and flexed his shoulders.
“Okay,” he told her as he swung from the bike, “we’re going in fast and quiet. Understood?”
He watched her remove her helmet and shake her shiny hair loose like some damned Suave commercial before she shot him a look clearly stating that she was convinced he suffered from an IQ very close to his shoe size.
“Roger that.” She snapped him a surly little salute.
God help him.
He was suffering from a case of blue balls as well as a McDonald’s super-sized order of someone’s-watching-me phobia, and the minute she got all snarky and sarcastic he forgot everything. All he could think of doing was grabbing her up and kissing her until that sardonic look melted into one of soft passion. That’s the way it’d happen, too. That’s the way it happened every time he was suddenly struck by chronic stupidity and allowed himself to get his lips on her. She’d tense for a second, just a second, and then she’d dissolve in his arms like a spoonful of sugar in a jug of sun tea. It was the damndest thing, and it made his already throbbing dick play the part of drumstick against his lower belly.
“Now’s not the time,” he muttered to himself and his little head.
“What did you say?”
“Nothin’.”
She eyed him askance.
When he motioned with his chin for her to head down the block, she cast him one last skeptical look, then shrugged, before turning to do as he instructed.
They were only halfway to the Morgans’ house when he got that itchy feeling again, like someone had him lined up in the ol’ crosshairs. He really wished he’d taken the time to search the area. As Grigg always said, Time spent on recon is seldom wasted.
Unfortunately, it was too late for that. They were already in the open or, in grunt vernacular, they were left hanging with their asses in the breeze. Easy targets for whoever might be out there watching.
Easing his .45 from his waistband, he covered Ali’s six as she blithely strolled down the quiet street. Keeping his head on swivel and his ears cocked to the slightest sound, he followed her around the side of her parents’ house, through the wooden gate and into the cool, quiet backyard.
A mammoth, stainless steel grill took up center stage on the flagstone patio, testament to the many barbecues they’d all shared during those rare times he and Grigg had taken leave. A round patio table and six chairs occupied the remaining patio space and Nate remembered a time, not too many years ago, when he and Grigg had sat right there, after the rest of the Morgan family retired, and talked about quitting the Corps and signing on with the new outfit Frank Knight was trying to put together.
He was suddenly overcome by a terrible case of what-ifs.
What if they’d stayed in uniform? Would they be retiring now? Maybe opening up a little pub together, getting fat on beer and steaks and thinking about settling down to start families?
What if he’d missed that last transport back from Colombia? Would they have still been tasked with that goddamned, ill-fated Syrian job?
What if he’d just been able to chew through those ancient ropes a little sooner? Would he have been able to save Grigg’s life?
What if—
“Watch that first rung,” Ali broke into his uselessly spinning thoughts, “it’s pretty frayed.”
He glanced up to see her quickly climbing the old rope ladder hanging down the rough trunk of the huge oak tree that regally stood sentry in the Morgan’s backyard.
Wow. Her butt was at eye level, causing his neon blue balls to tighten.
So great. His miscreant mind instantly jumped from death to sex. Not for the first time on this mission, he realized there was obviously something wrong with him, and the trip to see that shrink was starting to look more and more unavoidable.
“Say the magic word,” she teased after pulling herself up through the dark hole in the bottom of the tree house, grabbing the rope ladder and acting like she was going to reel it up.
“Alliii,” he warned and snagged the end of the frayed rope before she could lift it any higher. Not that he couldn’t scale the tree sans rope ladder one-legged and blindfolded, but he didn’t particularly like the thought of the rough bark tearing into his palms, or the state of Ali’s precious neck once he got his hands on it.
“Naaatte,” she mimicked his tone, her damn nose doing that irresistible wrinkly thing again when she grinned and peered down at him.
“This is no time for games,” he told her, although he was beyond relieved to see her somewhat back to her old, mischievous self.
He worried their little row in his bedroom last night, not to mention the way he’d ended things this morning, had forever wiped that teasing smile from her sweet face—at least as far as he was concerned. And wouldn’t that have been a crying shame? Especially considering Ali’s smile held an annual spot on his list of Top Ten Great Things to Happen to Me This Year.
“Oh pooh, you’re too serious. Besides, there’s nothing to fear up here,” she sat back as he quickly scaled the ladder and hoisted himself up through the tree house’s trap door. “This place has been besieged by dragons, Vikings, bandits, Indians, robbers, and cutthroats. It has yet to be taken.”
“Hmm,” he pulled the trapdoor shut, effectively shutting out the light from the Morgans’ landscaping and closing them into inky blackness.