Aiden, page 19
“I can’t tell you all the details, but I can tell you that it looks like we’ve got somebody taking out multiple people and some sort of international espionage going on.” Mountain grimaced as he shook his head. “I know of four deaths, and I’m afraid my brother will be the fifth. I have to go out and find him.”
“Understood,” Aiden replied. “It sounds like a rough go to have you here when you so want to be there for your brother.”
“It’ll be an ugly international op, and it won’t happen fast enough,” Mountain stated. “Everybody on my team will have to infiltrate the global training system to figure out what’s going on. We don’t know who the hell’s killing people or why those individuals were targeted. We don’t know if this is an attempt to make it look like somebody else is murdering these trainees. So far, everything just looks like an accident. But, in three months, there have been four accidents. And now my brother remains missing.”
“Right,” Aiden agreed. “So no accident.”
“Exactly,” Mountain stated.
The doctor stepped out of the surgery room, searching for someone, and asked, “Are you Aiden?”
“I am,” he confirmed and stood.
“Good. She’ll be fine. She’s coming out now to be transferred to her private room. You’ll see her in a couple hours.” He added, “I suspect she’ll be okay to go home in a couple days.”
“Perfect,” Aiden replied. “You have any problems with her going home to California in another week or so?”
“No, but I’d like to see Toby once more—or you can take her to her California doctor for the stitches to be removed,” he instructed. “However, I’m currently more worried about the next twenty-four hours.” With that, the doctor took off.
Aiden looked around but found no sign of Mountain. Almost immediately Toby was brought down the hallway, and Aiden followed, without any of the nurses noticing or stopping him. While they went inside one of the patient rooms, he stayed out of the way to ensure that nobody would have a problem with his presence.
As soon as they left Toby alone in her new hospital room, he sat down beside her bed. The room was quiet finally, and he whispered, “Hey, you make sure you get better, so we can have a life together.”
Instead of opening her eyes, Toby let a small smile play at the corner of her lips. “You know that’s not a bad thing to wake up to,” she replied, “because I feel pretty shitty right now.”
“You should be pretty high on the drugs,” Aiden noted, laughing.
“No, I hear you,” she murmured. “That’s … Wow, I wasn’t expecting to be shot.”
“They did catch him.”
“Both of them?” she asked, opening her eyes, rolling her head ever-so-slightly to the side.
“Yeah, both of them. And, from the text I just got from Henry, they’ve both confessed, and the cops have found their stash of the rest of the cash they took off those six guys.”
She smiled. “So they both confessed to murdering everybody?”
“Everybody but your ex.”
“Right.” Toby sighed. “Because of course that was Michelle.”
Aiden nodded. “However, it also looks like the new DA won’t bring any charges against your sister-in-law. It was self-defense. They’ll arrange therapy and make sure that she understands the gravity of what happened, and she’ll be in the clear.”
“Good,” she whispered, with relief. “And me?”
“The doc just wants to make sure you get through the night, okay? No extra bleeding or infection or whatever. And then, if everything looks good,” he added, “you might be released tomorrow or the day after.”
“Even better,” she murmured, as she closed her eyes.
“I asked the doc if he had a problem with you traveling to California right away.”
Her eyes popped open. “Right away?”
“Yeah, right away sounds good to me,” he stated. “This town is definitely not good for you.”
“I have to deal with my father-in-law first.”
“Nope, you don’t. All he has to do is get his lawyers to send your attorney the paperwork, and it can be done and dealt with from a distance, just between the lawyers.”
“I’ll still be in rough shape for a while.”
“Remember. No pressure.”
“I remember that,” she whispered, closing her eyes again. “Thank you for that.”
“As long as you haven’t changed your mind.”
Her eyes slowly opened, and she gave him one of the sweetest smiles he’d ever seen. “Nope, I haven’t changed my mind … unless you have.”
“Nope, I sure haven’t,” he declared. “If I could safely swoop you up and take you out of here right now, I would.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” she murmured, with a ghost of a smirk on her lips. “Right now I’ll just sleep.”
Chapter 15
Toby woke up and smiled at the beautiful sunshine entering their bedroom. Slipping on her bathing suit, she walked out to the pool in Aiden’s backyard.
He sat there with a cup of coffee. “Hey, sunshine.”
“Hey,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s been two weeks already.”
“Yeah, and yesterday the local doctor cleared you, so you know everything’s healing nicely.”
“Yeah, it’s still pretty sore,” she complained good-naturedly.
“It won’t be forever, and we’ll have to work on making sure you stretch that shoulder and can move it without pain eventually and all that good stuff,” he explained. He got up and gave her a gentle hug.
“You’ve been very patient.”
He shook his head. “No, not at all. I’m not here for the short-term. I’m here for the long-term.”
“And those are,” she murmured, “some of the nicest words I’ve ever heard.”
He kissed her softly and said, “Swim first, then I’ll fix breakfast.”
“I—” Her gaze checked out his basically nude body, wearing just his swim trunks. “I was wondering about, you know, maybe a nap.”
His eyes widened. “Are you that tired?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” she replied. “I am feeling much better.” And, with that, she unhooked the top of her bathing suit and dropped it to the ground. She pulled the two tie strings on the sides of her bikini, then turned and walked away.
“Holy shit,” Aiden said. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” As he came up behind her, he scooped her into his arms and carried her right through to their bedroom.
She laughed and looped her arm around his shoulders. “Well, you know what? For the last couple days I’ve been thinking we were ready for this, but you’ve been oh so honorable,” she teased, with an eye roll.
“Hey, I promised I wouldn’t push.”
“Yeah, you did, so I figured I would have to do something a little more obvious.”
“Well, you did.” He carefully laid her on the bed and shucked off his trunks. He came down gently on the bed beside her. “Are you sure you are ready now?”
“If you turn me down, it’d be really hard for me to get over the rejection,” she murmured, with a glint in her eyes.
He looked at her in shock, “I could never do that to you.”
“I don’t know,” she quipped. “Sounds like you were really close to asking me if I was serious or whether I would change my mind.”
He smiled. “I’d never insult you like that.”
“That’s good,” she stated, her gaze warming. “So what are you wasting all this time for? Haven’t we wasted enough?”
“I don’t know that we’ve wasted any of it,” he argued. “We’ve played chess, poker, Monopoly, and backgammon. We’ve read books, watched movies, and laughed. We even cried and talked until we’re blue in the face,” he replied. “That sounds like time well spent to me. Honestly I think those were some of the nicest times I’ve ever spent with a woman,” he confessed.
“You mean because we hadn’t been making love?”
“Well, not exactly. I was really looking forward to that part,” he teased, with a wicked grin. “But remember. No pressure.”
She pulled him to her so that they were skin to skin, chest to chest, and whispered. “Well, there’s pressure now,” she noted, “but only a pressure which you can satisfy.”
He lowered his head and whispered, “Your wish is my command.” And kissed her.
By the time he raised his head again, she could barely focus on the beloved face in front of her. “Wow. If I knew that was waiting for me all this time, I would have gotten here faster.”
“No, it was better this way,” he said. He gently dropped kisses across her cheek and down the nape of her neck, while she twisted beneath him. Then he explored the long slim body in front of him. “And remember,” he added, “we have all the time in the world.”
“No, we don’t. We have a whole lot of life out there that I want to experience. I feel like I’ve waited on so much in so many ways that I don’t want to wait anymore—for any of these experiences with you.”
When he took her nipple deep into his mouth, she arched beneath him, shuddering. “Dear God.”
He did it again and again, and each time she felt her body responding. She spread her legs and wrapped them around his hips, while trying to bring him up higher so that she could kiss him. When he wouldn’t comply, she looped her fingers through his hair and tugged gently. When he moved to her other breast, she gave up all pretenses and just moaned beneath his ministrations.
As he made his way down to her belly, she cried out and sat up, pulling him toward her so that she could kiss him soundly. He immediately shifted his position, so he was sitting on the bed and pulled her onto his lap. With his erection firm and proud between them, he said, “We can do it this way, if you want.”
She looked at him, then downward, and smiled. Immediately her hands slowly wrapped around his shaft in front of her.
He shuddered and mumbled, “Or not … because you might have time for this, but I’m not sure I’ll make it.” She smiled as she gently stroked a finger over the moisture at the top. He moaned and flipped her right back to the bed, until he was on top of her.
“Later,” he whispered. “Much later. It’d be that long before the sight of you doesn’t send me off the deep end.”
And he centered himself at the heart of her and slowly entered, inch by inch.
She finally cried out, “Stop teasing me.”
He plunged deep, until she was pinned in place, right beneath him.
“Dear God,” she whispered. As he started to move, she realized nothing had prepared her for this. When she exploded in his arms, she laid weak and trembling beneath him, as he climaxed above her. When he finally crashed beside her and pulled her into his arms, she whispered, “You know that if I’d known this earlier …”
“It would always be like this,” he said, trying to regain his breath. “I knew it. You knew it. You just needed to get there mentally.”
She reached up and whispered, “Thank you for letting me get there in my own time.”
“You’re always welcome,” he said, “but, if you think I’m letting you go anytime soon, you’re wrong.”
She smiled gently, rubbed her nose against him. “I hope not,” she replied. “I don’t want to get up anytime soon.” As they lay here recuperating, she asked, “How do you think my cousin is?”
“I think he’s just fine,” Aiden stated. “He’ll call me if he needs me.”
“I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.”
“It was before,” he noted, “but now this is a whole new game. It’s a whole new venture for the Mavericks. I don’t know what will happen. All I can say is, right now, Mountain has a really big problem up there, and he has asked for help. And the Mavericks, being Mavericks, have answered the call.”
“Just like you guys did for me, huh?”
He smiled broadly. “Believe me. I’m the happiest man alive that I came to your assistance. I wasn’t at all sure about this assignment, when I was told what the job was. However, once I realized Mountain was involved, I knew it was important, and it sure was,” he murmured. “Besides, sometimes things like this can change your life.”
“Are you saying I’ve changed your life?” she asked in a teasing voice.
“Absolutely you have,” he admitted, “and I couldn’t be happier.”
Epilogue
Lieutenant Commander Mason Callister walked into the private office and stood in front of retired Navy Commander Doran Magellan.
“Mason, good to see you.”
Yet the dry tone of voice and the scowl pinching the silver-haired man all belied his words. Mason had known Doran for over a decade, and their friendship had only grown over time.
Mason waited, as he watched the other man try to work the new high-tech phone system on his desk. With his hand circling the air above the black box, he appeared to hit buttons randomly.
Mason held back his amusement but to no avail.
“Why can’t a phone be a phone anymore?” the commander snapped, as his glare shifted from Mason to the box and back.
Asking the commander if he needed help wouldn’t make the older man feel any better, but sitting here and watching as he indiscriminately punched buttons was a struggle. “Is Helen away?” Mason asked.
“Yes, damn it. She’s at lunch, and I need her to be at lunch.” The commander’s piercing gaze pinned Mason in place. “No one is to know you’re here.”
Solemn, Mason nodded. “Understood.”
“Doran? Is that you?” A crotchety voice slammed into the room through the phone’s speakers. “Get away from that damn phone. You keep clicking buttons in my ear. Get Helen in there to do this.”
“No, she can’t be here for this.”
Silence came first, then a huge groan. “Damn it. Then you should have connected me last, so I don’t have to sit here and listen to you fumbling around.”
“Go pour yourself a damn drink then,” Doran barked. “I’m working on the others.”
A snort was his only response.
Mason bit the inside of his lip, as he really tried to hold back his grin. The retired commander had been hell on wheels while on active duty, and, even now, the retired part of his life seemed to be more of a euphemism than anything.
“Damn things …”
Mason looked around the dark mahogany office and the walls filled with photos, awards, medals. A life of purpose, accomplishment. And all of that had only piqued his interest during the initial call he’d received, telling him to be here at this time.
“Ah, got it.”
Mason’s eyebrows barely twitched, as the commander gave him a feral grin. “I’d rather lead a warship into battle than deal with some of today’s technology.”
As he was one of only a few commanders who’d been in a position to do such a thing, it said much about his capabilities.
And much about current technology.
The retired commander leaned back in his massive chair and motioned to the cart beside Mason. “Pour three cups.”
Interesting. Mason walked a couple steps across the rich tapestry-style carpet and lifted the silver service to pour coffee into three very down-to-earth-looking mugs.
“Black for me.”
Mason picked up two cups and walked one over to Doran.
“Thanks.” He leaned forward and snapped into the phone, “Everyone here?”
Multiple voices responded.
Curiouser and curiouser. Mason recognized several of the voices. Other relics of an era gone by. Although not a one would like to hear that, and, in good faith, it wasn’t fair. Mason had thought each of these men were retired, had relinquished power. Yet, as he studied Doran in front of him, Mason had to wonder if any of them actually had passed the baton or if they’d only slid into the shadows. Was this planned with the government’s authority? Or were these retirees a shadow group to the government?
The tangible sense of power and control oozed from Doran’s words, tone, stature—his very pores. This man might be heading into his sunset years—based on a simple calculation of chronological years spent on the planet—but he was a long way from being out of the action.
“Mason …” Doran began.
“Sir?”
“We’ve got a problem.”
Mason narrowed his gaze and waited.
Doran’s glare was hard, steely hard, with an icy glint. “Do you know the Mavericks?”
Mason’s eyebrows shot up. The black ops division was one of those well-kept secrets, so, therefore, everyone knew about it. He gave a decisive nod. “I do.”
“And you’re involved in the logistics behind the ICE training program in the Arctic, are you not?”
“I am.” Now where was the commander going with this?
“Do you know another SEAL by the name of Mountain Rode? He’s been working for the black ops Mavericks.” At his own words, the commander shook his head. “What the hell was his mother thinking when she gave him that moniker?”
“She wasn’t thinking anything,” said the man with a hard voice from behind Mason.
He stiffened slightly, then relaxed as he recognized that voice too.
“She died giving birth to me. And my full legal name is Mountain Bear Rode. It was my father’s doing.”
The commander glared at the new arrival. “Did I say you could come in?”
“Yes.” Mountain’s voice was firm, yet a definitive note of affection filled his tone.
That emotion told Mason so much.
The commander harrumphed, then cleared his throat. “Mason, we’re picking up a significant amount of chatter over that ICE training. Most of it good. Some of it the usual caterwauling we’ve come to expect every time we participate in a joint training mission. This one is set to run for six months, then to reassess.”
Mason already knew this. But he waited for the commander to get around to why Mason was here, and, more important, what any of this had to do with the mountain of a man who now towered beside him.
The commander shifted his gaze to Mountain, but he remained silent.
Mason noted Mountain was not only physically big but damn imposing and severely pissed, seemingly barely holding back the forces within. His body language seemed to yell, And the world will fix this, or I’ll find the reason why.
“Understood,” Aiden replied. “It sounds like a rough go to have you here when you so want to be there for your brother.”
“It’ll be an ugly international op, and it won’t happen fast enough,” Mountain stated. “Everybody on my team will have to infiltrate the global training system to figure out what’s going on. We don’t know who the hell’s killing people or why those individuals were targeted. We don’t know if this is an attempt to make it look like somebody else is murdering these trainees. So far, everything just looks like an accident. But, in three months, there have been four accidents. And now my brother remains missing.”
“Right,” Aiden agreed. “So no accident.”
“Exactly,” Mountain stated.
The doctor stepped out of the surgery room, searching for someone, and asked, “Are you Aiden?”
“I am,” he confirmed and stood.
“Good. She’ll be fine. She’s coming out now to be transferred to her private room. You’ll see her in a couple hours.” He added, “I suspect she’ll be okay to go home in a couple days.”
“Perfect,” Aiden replied. “You have any problems with her going home to California in another week or so?”
“No, but I’d like to see Toby once more—or you can take her to her California doctor for the stitches to be removed,” he instructed. “However, I’m currently more worried about the next twenty-four hours.” With that, the doctor took off.
Aiden looked around but found no sign of Mountain. Almost immediately Toby was brought down the hallway, and Aiden followed, without any of the nurses noticing or stopping him. While they went inside one of the patient rooms, he stayed out of the way to ensure that nobody would have a problem with his presence.
As soon as they left Toby alone in her new hospital room, he sat down beside her bed. The room was quiet finally, and he whispered, “Hey, you make sure you get better, so we can have a life together.”
Instead of opening her eyes, Toby let a small smile play at the corner of her lips. “You know that’s not a bad thing to wake up to,” she replied, “because I feel pretty shitty right now.”
“You should be pretty high on the drugs,” Aiden noted, laughing.
“No, I hear you,” she murmured. “That’s … Wow, I wasn’t expecting to be shot.”
“They did catch him.”
“Both of them?” she asked, opening her eyes, rolling her head ever-so-slightly to the side.
“Yeah, both of them. And, from the text I just got from Henry, they’ve both confessed, and the cops have found their stash of the rest of the cash they took off those six guys.”
She smiled. “So they both confessed to murdering everybody?”
“Everybody but your ex.”
“Right.” Toby sighed. “Because of course that was Michelle.”
Aiden nodded. “However, it also looks like the new DA won’t bring any charges against your sister-in-law. It was self-defense. They’ll arrange therapy and make sure that she understands the gravity of what happened, and she’ll be in the clear.”
“Good,” she whispered, with relief. “And me?”
“The doc just wants to make sure you get through the night, okay? No extra bleeding or infection or whatever. And then, if everything looks good,” he added, “you might be released tomorrow or the day after.”
“Even better,” she murmured, as she closed her eyes.
“I asked the doc if he had a problem with you traveling to California right away.”
Her eyes popped open. “Right away?”
“Yeah, right away sounds good to me,” he stated. “This town is definitely not good for you.”
“I have to deal with my father-in-law first.”
“Nope, you don’t. All he has to do is get his lawyers to send your attorney the paperwork, and it can be done and dealt with from a distance, just between the lawyers.”
“I’ll still be in rough shape for a while.”
“Remember. No pressure.”
“I remember that,” she whispered, closing her eyes again. “Thank you for that.”
“As long as you haven’t changed your mind.”
Her eyes slowly opened, and she gave him one of the sweetest smiles he’d ever seen. “Nope, I haven’t changed my mind … unless you have.”
“Nope, I sure haven’t,” he declared. “If I could safely swoop you up and take you out of here right now, I would.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” she murmured, with a ghost of a smirk on her lips. “Right now I’ll just sleep.”
Chapter 15
Toby woke up and smiled at the beautiful sunshine entering their bedroom. Slipping on her bathing suit, she walked out to the pool in Aiden’s backyard.
He sat there with a cup of coffee. “Hey, sunshine.”
“Hey,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s been two weeks already.”
“Yeah, and yesterday the local doctor cleared you, so you know everything’s healing nicely.”
“Yeah, it’s still pretty sore,” she complained good-naturedly.
“It won’t be forever, and we’ll have to work on making sure you stretch that shoulder and can move it without pain eventually and all that good stuff,” he explained. He got up and gave her a gentle hug.
“You’ve been very patient.”
He shook his head. “No, not at all. I’m not here for the short-term. I’m here for the long-term.”
“And those are,” she murmured, “some of the nicest words I’ve ever heard.”
He kissed her softly and said, “Swim first, then I’ll fix breakfast.”
“I—” Her gaze checked out his basically nude body, wearing just his swim trunks. “I was wondering about, you know, maybe a nap.”
His eyes widened. “Are you that tired?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” she replied. “I am feeling much better.” And, with that, she unhooked the top of her bathing suit and dropped it to the ground. She pulled the two tie strings on the sides of her bikini, then turned and walked away.
“Holy shit,” Aiden said. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” As he came up behind her, he scooped her into his arms and carried her right through to their bedroom.
She laughed and looped her arm around his shoulders. “Well, you know what? For the last couple days I’ve been thinking we were ready for this, but you’ve been oh so honorable,” she teased, with an eye roll.
“Hey, I promised I wouldn’t push.”
“Yeah, you did, so I figured I would have to do something a little more obvious.”
“Well, you did.” He carefully laid her on the bed and shucked off his trunks. He came down gently on the bed beside her. “Are you sure you are ready now?”
“If you turn me down, it’d be really hard for me to get over the rejection,” she murmured, with a glint in her eyes.
He looked at her in shock, “I could never do that to you.”
“I don’t know,” she quipped. “Sounds like you were really close to asking me if I was serious or whether I would change my mind.”
He smiled. “I’d never insult you like that.”
“That’s good,” she stated, her gaze warming. “So what are you wasting all this time for? Haven’t we wasted enough?”
“I don’t know that we’ve wasted any of it,” he argued. “We’ve played chess, poker, Monopoly, and backgammon. We’ve read books, watched movies, and laughed. We even cried and talked until we’re blue in the face,” he replied. “That sounds like time well spent to me. Honestly I think those were some of the nicest times I’ve ever spent with a woman,” he confessed.
“You mean because we hadn’t been making love?”
“Well, not exactly. I was really looking forward to that part,” he teased, with a wicked grin. “But remember. No pressure.”
She pulled him to her so that they were skin to skin, chest to chest, and whispered. “Well, there’s pressure now,” she noted, “but only a pressure which you can satisfy.”
He lowered his head and whispered, “Your wish is my command.” And kissed her.
By the time he raised his head again, she could barely focus on the beloved face in front of her. “Wow. If I knew that was waiting for me all this time, I would have gotten here faster.”
“No, it was better this way,” he said. He gently dropped kisses across her cheek and down the nape of her neck, while she twisted beneath him. Then he explored the long slim body in front of him. “And remember,” he added, “we have all the time in the world.”
“No, we don’t. We have a whole lot of life out there that I want to experience. I feel like I’ve waited on so much in so many ways that I don’t want to wait anymore—for any of these experiences with you.”
When he took her nipple deep into his mouth, she arched beneath him, shuddering. “Dear God.”
He did it again and again, and each time she felt her body responding. She spread her legs and wrapped them around his hips, while trying to bring him up higher so that she could kiss him. When he wouldn’t comply, she looped her fingers through his hair and tugged gently. When he moved to her other breast, she gave up all pretenses and just moaned beneath his ministrations.
As he made his way down to her belly, she cried out and sat up, pulling him toward her so that she could kiss him soundly. He immediately shifted his position, so he was sitting on the bed and pulled her onto his lap. With his erection firm and proud between them, he said, “We can do it this way, if you want.”
She looked at him, then downward, and smiled. Immediately her hands slowly wrapped around his shaft in front of her.
He shuddered and mumbled, “Or not … because you might have time for this, but I’m not sure I’ll make it.” She smiled as she gently stroked a finger over the moisture at the top. He moaned and flipped her right back to the bed, until he was on top of her.
“Later,” he whispered. “Much later. It’d be that long before the sight of you doesn’t send me off the deep end.”
And he centered himself at the heart of her and slowly entered, inch by inch.
She finally cried out, “Stop teasing me.”
He plunged deep, until she was pinned in place, right beneath him.
“Dear God,” she whispered. As he started to move, she realized nothing had prepared her for this. When she exploded in his arms, she laid weak and trembling beneath him, as he climaxed above her. When he finally crashed beside her and pulled her into his arms, she whispered, “You know that if I’d known this earlier …”
“It would always be like this,” he said, trying to regain his breath. “I knew it. You knew it. You just needed to get there mentally.”
She reached up and whispered, “Thank you for letting me get there in my own time.”
“You’re always welcome,” he said, “but, if you think I’m letting you go anytime soon, you’re wrong.”
She smiled gently, rubbed her nose against him. “I hope not,” she replied. “I don’t want to get up anytime soon.” As they lay here recuperating, she asked, “How do you think my cousin is?”
“I think he’s just fine,” Aiden stated. “He’ll call me if he needs me.”
“I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.”
“It was before,” he noted, “but now this is a whole new game. It’s a whole new venture for the Mavericks. I don’t know what will happen. All I can say is, right now, Mountain has a really big problem up there, and he has asked for help. And the Mavericks, being Mavericks, have answered the call.”
“Just like you guys did for me, huh?”
He smiled broadly. “Believe me. I’m the happiest man alive that I came to your assistance. I wasn’t at all sure about this assignment, when I was told what the job was. However, once I realized Mountain was involved, I knew it was important, and it sure was,” he murmured. “Besides, sometimes things like this can change your life.”
“Are you saying I’ve changed your life?” she asked in a teasing voice.
“Absolutely you have,” he admitted, “and I couldn’t be happier.”
Epilogue
Lieutenant Commander Mason Callister walked into the private office and stood in front of retired Navy Commander Doran Magellan.
“Mason, good to see you.”
Yet the dry tone of voice and the scowl pinching the silver-haired man all belied his words. Mason had known Doran for over a decade, and their friendship had only grown over time.
Mason waited, as he watched the other man try to work the new high-tech phone system on his desk. With his hand circling the air above the black box, he appeared to hit buttons randomly.
Mason held back his amusement but to no avail.
“Why can’t a phone be a phone anymore?” the commander snapped, as his glare shifted from Mason to the box and back.
Asking the commander if he needed help wouldn’t make the older man feel any better, but sitting here and watching as he indiscriminately punched buttons was a struggle. “Is Helen away?” Mason asked.
“Yes, damn it. She’s at lunch, and I need her to be at lunch.” The commander’s piercing gaze pinned Mason in place. “No one is to know you’re here.”
Solemn, Mason nodded. “Understood.”
“Doran? Is that you?” A crotchety voice slammed into the room through the phone’s speakers. “Get away from that damn phone. You keep clicking buttons in my ear. Get Helen in there to do this.”
“No, she can’t be here for this.”
Silence came first, then a huge groan. “Damn it. Then you should have connected me last, so I don’t have to sit here and listen to you fumbling around.”
“Go pour yourself a damn drink then,” Doran barked. “I’m working on the others.”
A snort was his only response.
Mason bit the inside of his lip, as he really tried to hold back his grin. The retired commander had been hell on wheels while on active duty, and, even now, the retired part of his life seemed to be more of a euphemism than anything.
“Damn things …”
Mason looked around the dark mahogany office and the walls filled with photos, awards, medals. A life of purpose, accomplishment. And all of that had only piqued his interest during the initial call he’d received, telling him to be here at this time.
“Ah, got it.”
Mason’s eyebrows barely twitched, as the commander gave him a feral grin. “I’d rather lead a warship into battle than deal with some of today’s technology.”
As he was one of only a few commanders who’d been in a position to do such a thing, it said much about his capabilities.
And much about current technology.
The retired commander leaned back in his massive chair and motioned to the cart beside Mason. “Pour three cups.”
Interesting. Mason walked a couple steps across the rich tapestry-style carpet and lifted the silver service to pour coffee into three very down-to-earth-looking mugs.
“Black for me.”
Mason picked up two cups and walked one over to Doran.
“Thanks.” He leaned forward and snapped into the phone, “Everyone here?”
Multiple voices responded.
Curiouser and curiouser. Mason recognized several of the voices. Other relics of an era gone by. Although not a one would like to hear that, and, in good faith, it wasn’t fair. Mason had thought each of these men were retired, had relinquished power. Yet, as he studied Doran in front of him, Mason had to wonder if any of them actually had passed the baton or if they’d only slid into the shadows. Was this planned with the government’s authority? Or were these retirees a shadow group to the government?
The tangible sense of power and control oozed from Doran’s words, tone, stature—his very pores. This man might be heading into his sunset years—based on a simple calculation of chronological years spent on the planet—but he was a long way from being out of the action.
“Mason …” Doran began.
“Sir?”
“We’ve got a problem.”
Mason narrowed his gaze and waited.
Doran’s glare was hard, steely hard, with an icy glint. “Do you know the Mavericks?”
Mason’s eyebrows shot up. The black ops division was one of those well-kept secrets, so, therefore, everyone knew about it. He gave a decisive nod. “I do.”
“And you’re involved in the logistics behind the ICE training program in the Arctic, are you not?”
“I am.” Now where was the commander going with this?
“Do you know another SEAL by the name of Mountain Rode? He’s been working for the black ops Mavericks.” At his own words, the commander shook his head. “What the hell was his mother thinking when she gave him that moniker?”
“She wasn’t thinking anything,” said the man with a hard voice from behind Mason.
He stiffened slightly, then relaxed as he recognized that voice too.
“She died giving birth to me. And my full legal name is Mountain Bear Rode. It was my father’s doing.”
The commander glared at the new arrival. “Did I say you could come in?”
“Yes.” Mountain’s voice was firm, yet a definitive note of affection filled his tone.
That emotion told Mason so much.
The commander harrumphed, then cleared his throat. “Mason, we’re picking up a significant amount of chatter over that ICE training. Most of it good. Some of it the usual caterwauling we’ve come to expect every time we participate in a joint training mission. This one is set to run for six months, then to reassess.”
Mason already knew this. But he waited for the commander to get around to why Mason was here, and, more important, what any of this had to do with the mountain of a man who now towered beside him.
The commander shifted his gaze to Mountain, but he remained silent.
Mason noted Mountain was not only physically big but damn imposing and severely pissed, seemingly barely holding back the forces within. His body language seemed to yell, And the world will fix this, or I’ll find the reason why.
