CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning, Eddie pushed opened the massive wood and glass cantilevered front door of the large rental house where his team was bunking.
His boot steps on the shiny white marble floor echoed off the high walls as he made his way across the large foyer.
It opened to a wide space with a kitchen his mother would love on one side and a large living room area with a tall fireplace on the other.
Directly across from him, spanning the full width of the space, was nothing but floor-to-ceiling windows incorporating the largest sliding glass door he’d ever seen.
They provided an unobstructed view of the infinity pool that matched the greenish-white color of the Rio Grande River snaking alongside the sandstone cliffs lining the valley in the distance.
The yard was devoid of grass, as were most in the area, but there were swaths of landscape beds filled with white crushed rocks and creosote bushes with their delicate yellow flowers scattered around the property, along with a few honey mesquite and whitethorn trees.
All hearty staples in the drier south Texas climate.
The owner was some bigwig Silicon Valley guy who bought the house as an occasional vacation home, but mostly it was an investment.
It had enough bedrooms for each of them to have their own room, including Eddie.
Calliope and Lucas were married, so they snagged the master suite with the enormous attached bathroom.
There was a massive home office with a large conference table, a comfortable lounging area by a fireplace, and all of the necessary high-tech goodies Luna felt the team would need. Most important, it had an advanced security system.
He turned at the sound of footsteps and saw Calliope entering from a hallway on the right. She held her sniper rifle in one hand, an insulated tumbler of most likely coffee in the other. She looked up and smiled when she saw him.
“Hey, Eddie,” she said. “How did things go at Lucia’s last night?”
In a moment of weakness, he’d shared a little of his and Lucia’s history with her. So she wasn’t necessarily asking whether there was trouble with Munoz. No, Calliope was asking how things went personally for him last night.
The woman had never met a personal boundary she wouldn’t crash through.
She was unapologetically nosy, especially when it came to her teammates.
Everyone knew it came from a place of love and concern, so they just sort of went with it.
She wanted everyone to be as happy as she was with Lucas.
And since Eddie was the only unattached member of the team, she’d focused her sights on his love life.
“No issues.” Except for the fact that he’d tossed and turned all night knowing Lucia was lying in bed less than fifty feet away. “Her daughter, Isabella, is a little cutie. She had a lot of questions about why I was there, but we dealt with it.”
“What did you tell her?” Calliope set her mug on a coaster on the wide coffee table, plopped down on the dark brown leather sofa, and crossed her legs on the cushion.
She lifted one hip to tug a rag from her back pocket, laid her rifle across her lap, and began wiping it down. The thing was immaculate, but as an elite sniper, she knew the importance of maintaining the tools of her trade.
“We just told her that her mom and I were friends and that I needed a place to stay while I was in town.” He wasn’t sure Isabella had bought their story, especially since she knew Eddie’s mom had a home nearby.
“Lucia told her I was here doing some work with Mark. Since he’s like an uncle to her, that seemed to satisfy her curiosity. ”
“Sooo, what happened with you and Lucia last night?” Calliope’s singsong voice was like an early warning signal letting you know she wouldn’t stop pressing until she was satisfied that she had all of the dirt.
“If you’re asking if we talked about our past, the answer is, no, we did not.” Eddie moved over to the couch opposite her and sat down. He looked at his watch. “Where is everyone?”
“Cole, Boone, and Lucas should be getting back from their run soon.” She leaned forward, set her rifle and cloth on the table, and grabbed her coffee.
“You sure Boone’s fully recovered?” Eddie worried his teammate might be pushing himself too soon.
“Psshh. You’re kidding, right?” Calliope shook her head. “To watch him work out, you’d never even know my brother was nearly blown up a mere eight weeks ago.”
“Yeah, he’s tough as hell. Probably from growing up roping steers and driving cattle.” Eddie respected the hell out of the guy.
“Exactly,” she said. “Growing up on a ranch is not for the weak.”
Boone and Calliope had only recently found out about each other.
Their mom had, apparently, been a bit of a free-spirited wanderer.
When Calliope was only two years old, her mom took off and left her daughter and husband behind.
A couple of years later, she gave Boone up for adoption when he was just a few weeks old.
“Are Viking and Hawk around?” he asked.
“They went to pick up breakfast for everyone at your sister’s diner.” She took a swig from her tumbler.
“Oh, man, you’re in for a treat. She’s doing very well with that place.” Having a loving husband who supported her helped a lot.
“Nice effort at trying to dodge my original question about Lucia, dude.” Her eyes locked on him, and her fingertip tapped against the side of her stainless-steel mug.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
She had the patience of a sniper and could easily wait him out.
“You are so fuckin’ nosy.” There was no real heat to his words.
“Duh,” she said unapologetically. “Now talk.”
Calliope was tough as nails and deadly as hell, but there was a sensitive side to her she only allowed a few people to see. Eddie was honored to be one of those people.
“Like I said, we didn’t get into anything about the past,” he repeated.
“By the time we finished filling out police reports, boarding up Isabella’s window, and eating dinner, they were both wiped out.
” There’d been no emotional space left for such a serious conversation.
“Isabella was too scared to sleep in her own room.”
Calliope nodded. “Understandable.”
“Definitely. So she slept with her mom, and I sat up for a few hours, watching the street, checking around the house, then I finally crashed.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I tried to convince Lucia not to go to school today, but she is adamant about neither of them missing any days.”
“My guess is, she’s trying to keep things as normal as possible for her little girl,” she said. “And for herself.”
“Yeah.” He sat forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “There’s a resource officer, Deputy Torres, assigned to the school. I met him when I dropped them off this morning and was impressed.”
He’d walked the girl and Lucia to their classrooms this morning, and Isabella had given him a big hug before skipping to her desk.
One of Lucia’s students had walked up to her with a question the second she appeared in the doorway.
She’d said a quick thank-you to Eddie, told him they’d be ready when he came to pick them up, then turned her attention to her student.
“Torres showed me around the perimeter of the school property, explained the procedures they have in place to limit access and to protect the students.” He’d also met the vice principal, a guy named Matt Pinkton who was covering for the principal while he was away at a three-day training course.
“Everything seemed okay at the school, but—”
“But you want to be the one covering their backs,” Calliope said.
And, dammit, she was right.
He couldn’t explain it, but he felt a desperate need to be the one protecting them.
Fortunately, the front door opened and there were three beeps from the alarm, saving him from having to respond. A few seconds later he heard Cole, Lucas, and Boone.
“We’ll finish this discussion later.” Calliope hopped up from the couch.
“Don’t think so,” he said.
“We’ll see.” She hurried over to Lucas, and Eddie just shook his head. “How was your run?” She wrapped her arms around Lucas’s waist, completely unbothered by the sweat dripping off of him, and gave him a quick kiss.
“Good, except Boone smoked us again.” Lucas lifted his water bottle and took a long swallow.
“What can I say? I’ve spent a lot of time running from bad guys.” Boone grinned and propped his hands on his hips.
He was a former Air Force special recon who’d escaped some pretty dodgy situations while serving in Afghanistan and Syria.
“Hawk and Viking back yet?” Cole’s long, dark hair was soaked all around his face, and sweat dripped from his thick beard.
As if summoned by his voice, the front door opened again, the alarm beeped to announce their arrival, and the two men walked up to stand next to them.
“Breakfast is here, and it smells amazing.” Hawk held up bags in both hands.
Viking did the same. “We weren’t sure what everyone wanted, so we ordered pretty much every breakfast item on the menu.”
Cole, Boone, and Lucas, with Calliope hot on his tail, dashed off to take showers. Calliope said she and Lucas showered together to save water. What a crock of crap that was.
Eddie liked to give them shit about being all gooey with each other, but he was kinda jealous of what they had. He was kinda jealous of what all of them had. Of course, he’d take that secret to his grave.
He followed Hawk and Viking into the kitchen and helped them set out all of the plastic to-go containers of food. He lifted a container full of bacon and two kinds of sausage to his nose and drew in a long breath.
“Damn, you were right.” His mouth watered in anticipation. “Where do they keep the plates in this place?” He started opening and closing cabinets.
“They’re down here.” Viking rolled open a large drawer filled with stacks of plates and bowls of different sizes. “I’ll grab utensils.”