Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(71)

“These clothes are history.” But she sat down on the edge of his jacket, looking out over the view.

He sank down beside her, and she glanced back at the truck.

“You left the radio on.”

“I know.” He unscrewed the top of his flask and offered it to her. She eyed it suspiciously before taking it.

“This is quite the setup.” She sniffed, then took a sip. “How come I feel like I’m not the first woman you’ve taken out here?”

The whiskey made her voice hoarse, and he smiled. “Woman? Yes. Girl? No.” He looked out over the meadow. “I brought Ashley Ferrell out here on her first car date.” She passed the flask back, and he took a swig.

“Do I want to know more?”

“Nah, the rest is top secret.”

She slipped her shoes off and tucked them beside her, then rested her arms on her knees. She leaned her head back and looked up at the sky.

“We don’t get stars like this in San Antonio.”

“Light pollution.” He glanced up. The stars looked nice, but it was nothing compared with the dead of night on the open ocean. Or in the Hindu Kush. On top of the world like that, the sky looked like a big dome of glitter directly over his head.

“I would have figured you for country,” she said.

He glanced over his shoulder, straining to hear the soft, soulful music drifting from his pickup.

“Yeah, well, I like a lot of stuff. Country, blues, jazz.”

“You’re full of surprises.”

He looked at her. “Maybe you need to get to know me better.”

She knew some of his preferences but not nearly enough. And he was learning hers—including the mind-blowing fact that she liked to take control during sex.

And maybe she could read his mind, because she looked away.

He took another sip from his flask and tried not to think about sex, because it wasn’t going to get him what he wanted, which was to get back into her bed not only tonight but the next time he had leave, too. And the time after that.

It would have to be her call, like he’d said, so he was playing it cool, trying to make her comfortable.

She gazed up at the stars again. “It’s nice here.”

“Yep.”

He handed her the flask, and she took another sip. Sometime in the last hour, she’d lost the anguished look that had been eating away at him since he’d first seen her standing in that hospital. But still she looked edgy.

A warm breeze stirred the trees as they sat there, not talking. It felt good to be home, surrounded by the familiar scent of dirt and pinesap. It seemed unreal that seventy-two hours from now, he’d probably be strapped into a C-17 over the ocean.

He should tell her. At least mention it. But she had enough to worry about right now, and he didn’t want to add to it.

“Alison Krauss, ‘Killing the Blues.’?” She looked at him. “My dad liked to listen to her when she played with Union Station. They’re from the same town in Illinois.”

“Illinois, huh? How’d you guys end up in Virginia?”

“He went to law school there. UVA.”

“Your alma mater,” he said, hoping she’d keep going. She never talked about her family, and he knew it was a nut he needed to crack if he wanted to understand her. “So he practiced law there?”

“He was an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Fairfax.” She cleared her throat. “I guess I never really told you how he died.”

“No, you didn’t.”

She paused and seemed to be collecting her thoughts. “It was a convenience-store holdup. He had this concealed-carry permit because of some of the people he’d helped prosecute. He always had his Beretta on him, and he tried to intervene in the holdup. The perp was roughing up this clerk, but there were two of them—one in the back, which my dad didn’t realize, so . . . it all went sideways.”

Derek reached over and squeezed her hand. “You and your dad were close?”

She nodded.

“And your mom?”

Wrong question. He could tell by the way her shoulders tensed. She slid her hand out from under his and rested her arms on her knees. “She remarried a few times. The latest guy’s okay, but I don’t know.” She shrugged. “There’s still a lot of resentment there.”

“You should patch that up,” he said, venturing an opinion she probably didn’t want to hear. “I used to have shit like that, too, with my dad. He rode us pretty hard growing up. For years, I thought I hated him.”

He looked out at the meadow bathed in moonlight, not so different from the conditions they’d had during the raid in A-bad.

He looked at Elizabeth, and she was listening. “But then a couple years ago, we lost our CO. He was killed in a helo accident.” It hadn’t really been an accident, but he didn’t want to go into all the details. “He was tough as hell, and he’d always reminded me of my dad. Then one day, he was just gone, no warning. And I realized you can’t take people for granted. Life’s too short.”

She held his gaze for a long moment, and then she looked away. Evidently, she didn’t like his advice.

The silence lengthened, and they stared out over the reservoir. A distant pair of headlights bumped over a road on the other side. It was so quiet, with just the wind and the music drifting over them, the low hum of the cicadas. He’d always loved this spot. When he came here, it was hard to believe the sprawling city of Houston was only a few miles away.