Hell on Wheels (3 page)

“What about Colby Ventura?” Ghost said. “He’s not with the Army anymore.”

“Really?” Frank lifted a brow, jotting down a quick note on his legal pad, excited by the prospect. “Yeah, man, Ace would be a
great
replacement.”

And as soon as he said the words, he winced and glanced at Ghost. Gone was the detachment. Now the man’s eyes were bright and his jaw so hard Frank wondered if, when he finally opened his mouth, there would be anything left but nubs and stumps where his teeth had been.

Grigg had been licensed to fly helos, and this was just one more tough reminder that Grigg was gone. He wished like hell they hadn’t lost him, but they had. Because despite all the precautions they took against it, the possibility of violent death came part and parcel of the job.

Still, that knowledge didn’t make the loss any easier. Not for any of them. But especially not for Ghost. Those two had been connected at the hip since graduating together from Marine Scout Sniper School in Quantico. The dynamic duo or, in certain circles, the
deadly
duo.

Ghost had barely given himself time to heal from the wounds he’d sustained during his torture by those Lebanese militants before he’d gone back and tried to hunt down every last man who’d dared to lay a hand on him and Grigg—and hadn’t that been a pretty mess for Frank to clean up?

He shuddered, remembering all the fast talking he’d had to do.

Kissing ass certainly wasn’t his forte and it always left a decidedly foul taste in his mouth, but he’d done it for Ghost—the best damned sniper on the planet.

Fortunately, Ghost’s search was for naught, because someone had beaten him to the punch. Those Hezbollah boys had been dead to a man—not surprising, really, considering the Syrians didn’t take too kindly to Lebanese militants operating on their soil. And the fact that the fuckers met messy ends didn’t break Frank’s hardened heart one little bit, and not just because they’d deserved it for what they’d done to Grigg and Ghost, but because it’d saved Ghost from perhaps making one of the greatest mistakes of his life.

The Knights broke, bent, and flagrantly ignored most rules, with the exception of one. Pure and simple, revenge had no place in their operating procedures. Should they ever kill outside a sanctioned mission, they’d be no better than the men they hunted. “We should also probably start the search for a communications specialist,” he added quickly, hoping to wipe that killing look off Ghost’s face. As frightening as his stony detachment could be, this was even worse. “That last job in Brazil would’ve gone a whole helluva lot smoother had any of us spoken Portuguese.”

“What about the ex-Mossad agent?” Ghost managed.

The Mossad agent…Great. One more thing for Frank to worry about today. Usually when General Fuller asked him and his boys to do something, they hopped-to with a salute and a resounding
Hoo-ah
! But hiding this Israeli had required a few negotiations. And, all in all, it wasn’t such a bad deal. Because now they found themselves the proud owners of a slightly less-than-new UH-60 Black Hawk.

Okay, perhaps that was putting it a touch mildly.

In truth, the chopper was a mess. It took a sound beating back in ’89 when the U.S. invaded Panama and sat in a warehouse collecting dust ever since. But if anyone could get the twenty-something-year-old beast up and running again, it was Rebecca “The Rebel” Reichert—their resident wunderkind mechanic and
his
personal weakness.

Of course, he wouldn’t allow himself the perverse pleasure of thinking of her now…

“No-go on the language skills for the new guy,” he said as he surreptitiously glanced at his titanium wristwatch, remembering what he really brought Ghost in to talk about. “You seen that psychologist I told you about?”

He leaned forward. The body language equivalent of,
I’m concerned about you, buddy.

Not that he was necessarily a proponent of the touchy-feely psychoanalysis thing, being of the school of thought that sometimes a man just needed to work through his own shit in his own time, but after what Nate had to do?

Fuck.
The guy surely needed to talk to someone.

“We should ask Dan Man and Ozzie who they’d choose for the CS position,” Ghost said, and the small hope Frank had that Ghost might’ve gone to see the good doctor was flushed straight down the crapper.

Ho-kay, talk of psychologists was clearly off the table.

“Well, let’s go find them,” he capitulated, promising himself he’d come back to the question of Ghost’s mental state at a later date.

He pushed up from his desk when Patti, Dan’s wife and Black Knights Inc.’s office manager, walked into his office.

“Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,” she said. “But Geralt says we’ve got a visitor at the gate. Alisa Morgan. She’s asking to see Ghost.”

And all the black fire that’d been burning in Ghost’s eyes after Frank made that asshole statement about Ace being a
great
replacement
banked in an instant. The guy’s face once more fell into its usual mask of rigid impassivity.

Well, now, isn’t that interesting?

***

“What’r’ya doin’ here, Ali?”

Ali jumped as she was cut off from her pointless questioning—if Big Red hadn’t told her where to park her car, she might’ve assumed he was mute—by the sound of Nate’s deep voice.

Sheesh! No doubt Nate’d inherited his stealthiness from his Cherokee grandfather along with that blade of a nose, those jet-black eyes, and that raven hair. The man had the most exasperating habit of just suddenly…materializing.

“Nate, I…I’m sorry to b-barge in on you like this.” Her heart and mouth simultaneously proceeded to s-s-stutter just as they always did when he caught her off guard. Somehow he managed to change her from a prepossessed, confident woman into a stammering, hesitant moron.
Great
way
to
start, Ali.
“Maybe I should’ve called…”

But she’d been afraid calling and hearing his voice would change her mind. And she was certain, really certain this time, she needed his help.

His only response was a resonant grunt that sounded like it came up from the soles of his feet. He and Big Red had obviously taken lessons and been star pupils at the School of Non-Answers and Uncommunicativeness.

Typical. Just the reception she expected.

She had to rein in the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she decided to indulge herself and let them roam over Nate as he stood filling the space between the two halves of the wrought iron gate.

He put on some weight since last she saw him. Not that that was a bad thing. He’d been too thin then. Now all six-plus feet of him was hard, honed muscle and deeply tanned skin. His thick black hair was a bit longer, brushing his collar and curling around his ears invitingly. Well…what some
naïve
woman might consider invitingly. Give that woman ten minutes in his presence and she’d soon realize there was absolutely nothing inviting about Nathan Weller except for his ridiculously handsome face.

And it
was
ridiculously handsome.

Too bad he had all the manners and personality of a skunk.

“Are you going to invite me in?” she asked grudgingly when it became clear he was perfectly happy to simply stand there in the sweltering summer sun and eye her like she was something smelly that’d stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

He cocked his head and crossed his arms over his chest, causing his impressive biceps to bunch into hard balls, straining the sleeves of his gray T-shirt. She shivered despite the heat when she remembered what it was like to be held in those desperately strong arms…

Sheesh, Ali, just forget it.

Trouble was, she’d been unable to forget it for even one night. In the last three months, she’d been plagued by dreams that—

“What’r’ya doin’ here?” he asked again. The man had the strangest way of making contractions out of multiple words. As if he couldn’t be bothered with those pesky, extra syllables.

“I need to talk to you.”

He shrugged. “S’talk.”

“Not here,” she gave him her patented,
what
are
you, an eeediot?
look. “Somewhere private. You live here on this property, don’t you? Just like Grigg did? Why don’t you take me back to your place, maybe offer me a drink?”

He narrowed his eyes and waited.

Lifting her chin, she firmed her shoulders and her resolve. “I thought you might feel that way.” Another reason why she hadn’t called and alerted him to her imminent arrival. She hadn’t wanted to give him time to come up with an excuse not to see her.

She spun on her heel and marched back to her car. Popping the trunk, she mentally called him every dirty name she could think of and cursed both him and the relentless blast of the sun beating down on her shoulders as she hauled out a suitcase. Setting the wheeled carrier on the ground, she popped up the telescoping handle, hoisted her purse higher on her shoulder and marched back toward him as a trickle of sweat slid between her shoulder blades.

She wasn’t sure if it was the sweltering temperatures or the discomfort she always experienced from being around Nate that made her so grouchy. Probably both. Or maybe she was just pissed at having to make this trip in the first place.

Grigg had managed to get her into one too many scrapes when he was alive—granted he’d always been the one to get her out of them, too—but it was beyond tolerable that her big, lovable, idiotic brother was still involving her in his dubious affairs even from the grave.

Problem was, now there was no way he could come to her rescue.

Which was why she was there, melting in the heat waves oozing up off the Chicago pavement, nerves stretched taut in the resounding silence that surrounded her as she waited for Nate to say something…
anything.

Of course that hope was about as constructive as peeing into the wind since he just continued to stand there, staring at her, not moving so much as a muscle to help her with her luggage—the inimitably rude sonofagun.

“So where do you want me?” she finally asked in order to fill the stifling silence.

Something blazed in his eyes for a second, a quick flash that brightened the ebony of his impassive gaze. Then whatever it was disappeared so fast she was left wondering if she’d really seen anything at all.

Nah
, she decided, surely not, because that would mean she fired some emotion in him, and as far as she knew, the man was a complete cyborg.

“Well?” she demanded impatiently when the big idiot just continued to stand there. Nate had a kind of predatory silence to him that always disconcerted her. And yes, Big Red was able to pull his eyes away from the television screens to watch the little drama playing out in front of him.

Great.

“You’re gonna stay here? With me?”

Why did he make it sound like she was taking her life in her own hands?

“Yes, I am. I’ve just spent nearly twenty hours in the car, and I don’t have the patience to spend another twenty on a return trip. Greasy roadside café food has left me bloated. Too much caffeine has my eyes rolling around inside my skull like pinballs. I’m tired. I’m thirsty. I’m definitely not staying in a hotel, for reasons I’ll explain once you let me in, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d proceed so I can get out of this blistering sun. I thought Chicago was supposed to have temperate summers. It’s a gosh-darn oven out here. In fact, I think my deodorant is starting to fail, and that super-sized slushy I bought over the border in Indiana means I’m pretty sure I’m going to need to use the facilities PDQ. So yes, I’ve a mind to stay here with you.”

…And she’d done it again. That telltale tick beat away in his jaw, informing her he thought she blasted him with a big ol’ load of verbal diarrhea.

But, she told herself, at least she got past the first hurdle—she stated her intentions—even if the delivery was a little long-winded and laughably heavy on the TMI.

“How long?” he asked grudgingly.

“As long as it takes.” She lifted her chin, giving him the facial equivalent of
Come
on, I dare you
.

Silence.

So what else was new?

“Look, it’s the least you can do for the little sister of your best friend,” she added. Yes, she knew that was a low blow, but sheesh, he forced her to pull out the big guns.

“Fine,” he capitulated, though his face was wallpapered with I-
so
-don’t-want-to-do-this. “But we’ll be going to the main shop…for now.” He turned and headed back through the gates.

“Fine,” she hoisted her purse higher and her gaze snagged on the delicious bulge of his male butt hugged so lovingly in a pair of khaki cargo shorts. Wow. Talk about a gluteus maximus that defied gravity. Even though he was a complete jackass, she couldn’t help but drool.

It was a total waste, in her opinion, that the guy was so surly. Or maybe it was an incredible stroke of luck. Because if he’d had even one ounce of charm, she’d have been a goner from day one.

At seventeen she’d been bursting with hormones and curiosity and the need to fall in mad, passionate love with a boy who’d worship the very ground she walked on. At the time she’d been certain this hypothetical boy would be handsome and funny, with the most amazing, heart-melting smile.

Nate had certainly filled her criteria for handsome.
Whew!
The first sight of him had fairly knocked her back on her booty.

She remembered it like it was yesterday…

It was the second-to-last day of high school. She wore her favorite pair of cutoff shorts and the T-shirt she’d gotten at the Bon Jovi concert the weekend before. She was preoccupied with the AP Calculus final she was taking during first period—she hadn’t studied as much as she should have—when she skipped into her parents’ kitchen and
bam!

It was love at first sight.

That love lasted all of five minutes.

Because it quickly became clear, PFC Nathan Weller lacked any sort of sense of humor and she soon suspected the man didn’t even know
how
to smile. On top of those woeful failings, he got a pained expression on his face every time she tried to engage him in conversation, which pretty much blew the whole worshipping-the ground-she-walked-on thing right out of the water.