Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Seriously, Daph?”
“Trust, Alex.” Daphne stood with her clipboard in her hand, waving at the field and explaining what her idea was for the family day.
A twelve-foot-tall skeleton stood beside the range with a pod of skeleton spiders ranging in front of it. Daphne had tied an orange and black scarf around the skeleton’s neck and rigged up leashes to the spiders so it looked like he—it?—was taking them for a walk.
“You realize this is a shooting range and training facility, right?”
“Yes indeed, I sure do. And I’m telling you that participating in the community and providing them a place to learn about how to keep their homes and businesses secure, not to mention the most important thing of all—their families—is a good idea.
It’s practically a community service, Alex.
And it’ll bring more business in the long run. ”
“We don’t need more business.”
Hell, they already had more than they needed. They’d hired a couple of part time RSOs, but they were going to need more instructors if they kept expanding.
And they didn’t need more instructors because that would just be more people poking around and potentially impeding the mission. Not to mention, once Ghost Ops wrapped up, would the range still be there?
Probably not.
Daphne gaped. “You did not just say that!”
“I did. Plan a fun family day if it floats your boat, but not because I want more business.”
Her frown was monumental. “Then why would you do it?”
“Because you aren’t wrong about the community service aspect. If we can educate people on some basic safety training, it’s worthwhile.”
She tapped her chin with her pen. “I’ll see if I can get the fire department out. And the police. We can have demonstrations—oh, that’s brilliant! You’re brilliant, Alex!”
He blinked. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You did. You said you don’t want more business, but you don’t mind educating the community. We have the space out here, and if we can get the firemen and police to participate, a lot of the education will be on them. It’s a win all around.”
“How the hell do you plan to pull all this together before the end of the month?”
“Never you mind, mister. I got this.”
“Daph, I say this with love in my heart—you exhaust me. Do whatever you want. Just don’t ask me to give you money, and don’t you dare invite a carnival to set up on the field.”
He could see the moment that idea took hold. “A carnival—I bet we could find one.”
He put a finger practically in her face. “Absolutely not. The first tilt-a-whirl or Ferris wheel that rolls in here, I’m firing Kane and sending him back to DC to beg his old contacts for a job. You feel me?”
She huffed and snapped her teeth at him. He barely withdrew his finger in time.
“Fine. We’ll have our own carnival. No rides, no carnies, just some booths from the local businesses and some games.”
He sighed and flicked a hand at her in dismissal as he walked away. Kane hovered near the door like a mother hen as Alex stepped inside.
“Uh, you okay, boss?”
“Wondering if I can ask Diana to send Daphne back to New Orleans. But sure, I’m fine.”
“She’s a lot,” Kane said. “But she means well.”
“I know she does.” He stopped and faced his teammate. “If you tell her I said what I’m about to say, I’ll liberate your balls from your body with a strand of dental floss and no anesthesia.”
Kane nodded, his throat working as he nearly choked on his own spit.
“You okay?” Ghost asked.
“Yeah, uh. Hell of a visual.”
“Precisely. Here it is: she makes me laugh. I like seeing her eyes light up with ideas, and I like it that the grumpier I get, the more enthusiastic she is. For somebody who went through all the crap she did, with the shitty upbringing she had, she radiates joy. Some of it’s you, but some of it’s just who she is. She makes this place sunnier.”
Kane’s eyes shone with love. Ghost envied him that. He didn’t know what it felt like, probably never would. Though thoughts of Diana made warmth glow inside him. Probably just desire kindling to life. Couldn’t deny that sex with her was hot and all-consuming.
A thought he deliberately pushed away so he didn’t embarrass himself with a stiff dick pushing against his jeans.
“Yeah, she does,” Kane said with a goofy grin. “Best thing ever happened to me.”
“You’re damn straight she is. You ever screw it up, I’m taking her side. Just so you know.”
“Appreciate that, boss,” Kane said wryly.
“Know your strengths, man. In a personality contest, she’s gonna win. But if I need somebody to charge into a nest of tangos at my side, it’s you.”
“Good to know I have my uses.”
Ghost chuckled to himself as he headed for his office.
He knew for a fact Kane would tell Daphne some version of Alex likes you and your crazy ideas and he didn’t really care.
Daphne deserved all the acceptance and love from friends she could get after her life with the O’Malleys.
Her father had pitted her and her brother against each other as children, laughing as they tried to one-up each other.
When one of them hurt the other, he’d cheered and told the hurt one to toughen up.
As crazy as his own dad had gotten in the depths of his paranoia, he’d never physically harmed either Ghost or his mother.
Neglected them. Made them work hard every day to hunt and fish and prepare for winter, where they’d be iced in for months.
Going outside during those dark days had courted death at every turn, but he’d done it when ordered to do so.
A wolf howled inside his head, and he shook it to clear the sound. His dad and Daphne’s had both been motivated by making sure their kids were prepared for the life they were given. Was that love or not? It was a question that haunted him sometimes, though less often than it used to.
The older he got, the more he didn’t give a shit what the motivation was.
Harm was harm, meant or not meant. His parents were dead, his mother because of his father’s paranoia in taking them so far from the help that could have saved her life, and his father because even after all the prep and planning to stay alive when the government fell apart and anarchy reigned, you couldn’t outrun your own demons when they were determined to kill you.
He sat down to go over paperwork when his burner phone pinged with a text.
Gannon:
Congrats, man. They want to talk to you again. They’ll be back two weeks from Saturday. You in?
He rocked back in his seat. Hell, yeah, he was in. He sent back a response. Then he sent one asking if he could bring Diana or did he need to leave her home.
Gannon:
Bring her along. There’ll be people, though not as many as last week. See you both at the brewery on Thursday?
Ghost typed an affirmative and then swore.
He’d hoped Gannon would have said no about Diana returning to the farm when the Europeans are back.
Then he could have told Diana very truthfully that she wasn’t invited.
Hell, he should have done it anyway. But he kept thinking of her reaction when she’d heard Viktor Dashevsky on the television that morning.
She’d gone stiff and distant. There’d been sorrow and fear.
Anger. She’d cycled through a range of emotions in a span of moments, and he’d witnessed them all.
Who was he to say she didn’t have a right to go after Dashevsky for whatever he’d done?
If he made the choice to leave her out of it, he was making a decision for her without her knowledge.
He thought of Daphne giving him hell for the decision he’d made when he’d told Kane not to get involved with her, and though he’d thought he was right at the time, it was a shit thing to do.
Doing the same to Diana, even if he was trying to keep her safe, wasn’t going to sit right in his gut.
Fucking Daphne Bryant and her fucking guilt trips.
Ghost sighed. What the hell was happening to him?
Thinking about what people wanted, about their emotions, when he was trained to be a military commander who didn’t give a shit about emotions.
He was trained to get the best results possible with the least cost in lives, and that’s what he needed to be doing.
But here he was thinking about feelings.
His own feelings were that he didn’t want Diana out there again.
She was strong, he knew that, and she was a good agent.
Taking Diana to a militia gathering wasn’t the same as taking Daphne or Callie, for instance.
Though maybe Daph was a bad example because she could outshoot most of the people there.
Point being, Diana was trained, even if she didn’t have his training. She wasn’t stupid and she wouldn’t blunder into anything she shouldn’t. What’d happened with the four men from the Dawg who’d gotten the jump on her last week wasn’t going to happen again.
Because he’d be with her. They’d operate together, a team. They’d have each other’s backs.
Didn’t stop him from worrying about what he couldn’t predict, but they’d go over all the possibilities before they ever drove onto that property.
This was a mission. They were both professionals.
Feelings had nothing to do with it.
He bolted awake, heart pounding, his every instinct to leap from the bed and grab the pistol he’d left in the nightstand drawer.
Something stopped him, though. He was sitting upright, muscles tensed and ready, but a voice inside him commanded him not to do it. A scent of flowers and woman stole to him, reminding him. Grounding him.
“Alex? What’s wrong?”
Diana pushed onto an elbow, her blond hair sliding over her shoulder to cover her naked breast, her expressive eyes staring at him with concern.
He shoved a hand through his hair and subsided against the headboard, breathing slowly.
The wolf had been on him again, its jaw closing around his throat.
He’d felt the warm blood sliding down his skin, smelled the sharp tang of it.