Defending Harlow (Mountain Mercenaries #4)(65)

Harlow wasn’t that strong. There was no way she would have been brave enough to endure what the other women had and still be as funny, outgoing, and friendly. It was safe to say these women intimidated the hell out of her. She wasn’t anyone special. She had loving parents; had grown up in Topeka, for God’s sake; and made food for a living. She didn’t want to be famous, didn’t want to be rich, only wanted to be able to make people happy by cooking them good meals.

“I knew Lowell in high school,” Harlow said, answering Morgan’s question. “He was a year older than me, and we were in a yearbook club together. He was only there because he was trying to have something on his résumé that would look good for recruiters.”

“I can’t picture Black as a high schooler at all,” Allye said. “I mean, the first time I met him, he plucked my freezing ass from the Pacific Ocean. He was wearing all black and was super polite. I bet he was popular, wasn’t he?”

Harlow nodded. “Extremely. I was surprised he even talked to me in that class. But he did. He was nice.”

“You liked him!” Chloe exclaimed a little too loudly.

“Shhhh!” Harlow scolded her, looking nervously toward the kitchen, where the men were having what looked like an intense conversation.

“You did!” the other woman said a bit softer.

“Well, duh,” Harlow drawled. “Who wouldn’t?”

Everyone giggled.

“But I knew he’d never look twice at me. Besides, he was graduating and heading off to save the world. I can’t tell you how surprised I was when I saw him in the shelter the first time. And he actually remembered me! I was shocked. Seriously. I look nothing like I did in high school.”

“You have a distinctive name,” Allye informed her. “Of course he remembered you.”

Harlow shook her head. She wasn’t going to argue about it, but she knew that probably wasn’t the case. “Anyway, then he gave me his number, and I about died. I wanted to call him practically every day, but I couldn’t think of a good reason. I mean, I asked him about beginner gun-safety classes, but it’s not like I was in a hurry to actually shoot a weapon. But then when the other women started getting harassed, and no one knew what to do about it, I figured I should call. For their sakes.”

“And now you’re dating,” Chloe said. When Morgan shook her head in exasperation, she defended herself. “Hey, I want to get to the good stuff. We don’t know how long our men will be in there chitchatting, and I want to know about these nondates they’ve been on.”

“You know about that?” Harlow asked, surprised.

“Just what Ro’s told me. That Black told them you’ve had some bad experiences with dating, so he was taking you on sneak dates.”

Harlow giggled again. Yeah, that was exactly what they were. “So you all knew I was dating Lowell before me, huh?”

Morgan smiled and shrugged.

Allye nodded.

And Chloe said, “Yup. That’s how being with one of the Mountain Mercenaries works. Nothing’s a secret, and we all know everything about everyone. For instance, did you know Black got his nickname when he ran into a door the first day of boot camp and got a huge black eye? The other recruits started calling him Blackie, and it eventually got shortened to Black and stuck.”

Harlow hadn’t known that. She shook her head, enthralled.

“And Ball’s last name is Black, so you’d think that’s what people would call him, but when he was in the Coast Guard, he had a reputation for always knowing when the shit was about to hit the fan, and everyone always said he was ‘on the ball.’ That apparently just became Ball.”

It was fascinating to learn these little things about the very macho men in the other room. Harlow listened, riveted, soaking up every scrap of information she could.

“Did you guys hear about why Ball quit the Coast Guard?” Morgan whispered.

Harlow was tempted to say something about how it wasn’t nice to talk about the men like they were, but on the other hand, she really wanted to know. She kept quiet as Morgan continued.

“I heard Arrow talking to him one night on the phone. I only heard Arrow’s side of the conversation, but he was commiserating with Ball about a woman messing up some mission he’d been on. I guess they’d chased down a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, and she didn’t do something properly. When they went to handcuff the bad guys, one pulled out a gun the woman hadn’t noticed and shot Ball.”

“Holy crap, really?” Allye asked. “I didn’t know that.”

Morgan nodded. “Ball’s arm was never the same, and he was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard as a result. And then he joined the Mountain Mercenaries.”

Harlow felt sorry for Ball. He seemed like a really nice guy, and it sucked that he’d been shot. It sucked that it had happened because someone else didn’t do something properly, and it sucked even more that he’d been discharged as a result of someone else’s actions. She’d met some pretty kick-ass women in her life. Police officers who could take down a man three times their size. Firefighters who didn’t hesitate to run into a burning building. Soldiers who fought just as hard for their country as their male counterparts.

She looked over to Lowell’s kitchen, where he and his friends were still talking.