Chapter 2
“Cap.” Dawson nudges my elbow.
I hear him in the background as I’m currently too busy contemplating what just happened between me and the waitress. There was something there, some kind of magic I never experienced when seeing a woman before. I’m trying to break it down, figure it out.
“You never said there were hot chicks in this town,” Dawson says.
I grew up a few towns over. Never seen this girl before. Granted, my parents left Wyoming for California when I was about fifteen, so she might’ve been five, though she doesn’t seem a decade younger than me. Hm.
“Captain.” Dawson puts more force into the word.
“There aren’t any hot chicks in this town,” I say.
“The waitress was hot.”
Mason raises his hand. “I’m in with you, Dawson.”
These two have shared women. I shake my head. “Tammy’s off-limits.” I lifted the name off the badge. It sounds cute. I could say it for a while, a year, two, till I die maybe? Hm. My brain is computing, and the fuckers are still yapping at me.
“Oh, come on, Cap,” Dawson says.
“I’m serious.”
“Why?”
“My ex,” I lie. “Went to same high school.”
“You haven’t been here since then.”
“So?”
“That was twenty years ago.”
“Again, so?” I bark a bit, agitated that he wants to bang the waitress.
Not that I blame him. She’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, even when she looks beat for the day.
While she took our orders, I didn’t check her hands for a ring, but I’m fairly certain she’s married.
Women her age generally are, and that’s also another reason my team should stay away from her.
We’re not here for drama, not when we bought homes in the new developments in the same zip code.
The girl takes a while to come back. The guys and I shoot the shit, and I yawn, barely keeping my eyes open.
Nonstop for days, we rode in U-Hauls and drag-along trailers from California to here and rested only when we got into town, which was, oh, about four hours ago, two hours before Dawson woke everyone up and got us into the diner for breakfast.
I’m fucking starving, haven’t even had coffee yet, and I’m growing a little irritated that Tammy kept us waiting over twenty minutes before she even checked in.
Now it’s been at least fifteen since she took the order.
I have a feeling because the diner is full and we’re a large party, this is gonna take forever.
I hate waiting or sitting still in one place for too long without having things to do.
But I’m gonna behave. I really am.
I check my watch and take stock of my men, who are also growing grumpier by the minute. Twenty minutes pass, and Tammy’s not back yet. I tap my fingers on the table. She’s busy. Even if she were married, I’m sure she wouldn’t ignore the magic moment we had and avoid the table on purpose.
Intent on grabbing a pot of coffee and some cups, I leave the room.
It feels like a bunker, with only a tiny window overlooking the mountain region that reminds me of some of the landscapes in countries I never wanna visit again.
I walk into the main diner and see my waitress chatting up a single dude in a suit sitting at the second table to the left of the door.
She’s smiling as she talks. I walk by her, straight to the counter where another waitress is talking to the chef in the kitchen.
On the counter is a tray with two coffeepots and seven cups, one full, with a narrow orange straw sticking out of it.
“This for me?” I ask the rhetorical question and take the tray, then move back toward our room, eyes on the man my waitress is talking to.
He looks like a dude I’d call a Suit. Behind her, I stop and lean in, then whisper in her ear, “Kitten, did you forget about me?”
Ah fuck, she smells like small-town Christmas, vanilla sex and sweet orange-blossom shampoo, laughter, and every dream I held on to but never experienced while overseas hiding behind the dirt and rocks of Afghanistan executing missions for my country.
She freezes, and I linger far longer than appropriate for a man who might be hitting on a married woman. I take my eyes off her ear, which I wanna bite, and glare at the pretty boy in the suit. He catches my glare and lifts an eyebrow. Bitch, please, I eat suits for breakfast.
“I got my own coffee, Kitten,” I throw over my shoulder as I walk away. I never quite grew out of that fifteen-year-old asshole with the hots for small-town girls with big tits. She’s mine, even if I have to kill the Suit and her husband.
“Looks like I’ll be shooting people soon,” I announce as I put the tray of coffee at the end of the table. I pour a cup for myself, then look up at six pairs of eyes all staring at something behind me. I turn to see Tammy there, arms crossed.
“I was on my way,” she says.
“You seem to have made a rest stop before you executed your coffee mission. There’s no rest while the mission is incomplete. Isn’t that right, boys?”
“Aye, Captain,” my boys answer, then laugh.
I pour the coffee for all my guys when she rounds me. I feel her glare on my face, but I ignore it and walk around the table to sit back in my place. Elbows on the table, I sip my black coffee. It’s excellent, and I moan as if she’s already sucking my dick. “Mmmmm.”
Tammy stands at the end of the table looking like she has something to say.
“Yes?” I quirk an eyebrow like the Suit. Maybe she likes that kind of stuff. Does he get his eyebrows plucked? Does she like pretty boys in suits? Too bad for her, because she’s gonna be stuck with me, and I don’t wear suits.
“Tammy!” rings from the main diner, and my waitress pinches her lips and leaves.
“Damn, that ginger girl is a screamer,” I say.
“Cap, is the ginger girl an ex too?” Dawson asks.
“Hell no. I like ’em sweet. Speaking of sweet…
” I leave the rest hanging as Tammy walks back, the screaming ginger girl and the cook in tow to deliver the massive amounts of food we ordered.
As she leaves, I order iced tea. Briefly, she nods, then gets on with her business, but not before I check out her ring finger.
No gold band. “Got a mission,” I say and start eating.
The guys eat, glancing at me, waiting for me to lay out the specs. Years after getting sent home, we stuck together, got obsessed with Harleys, and now, it seems, I’m the captain for life. The military stayed with us even out here in the Land of the Free.
Old habits and the things we’ve gone through aren’t leaving us, and we aren’t leaving each other, not after we lost three men to suicide after we initially split up.
Sticking together seemed to lessen our PTSD symptoms, and we stopped taking the meds that made us slow and muddied our brains.
Dawson also laid off alcohol. Senator still smokes weed, but that seems to chase away the night terrors, so that’s fine by me.
Dawson nudges my elbow, and I look up from my plate, mouth full of omelet and French toast. I chew, and my eyes roll into the back of my head. Swallowing, I say, “Fuck, it’s still the best omelet in the world.”
“The one we had in that one place in Beirut was pretty memorable,” Senator says.
“With a more memorable cook,” Mason pitches in, and we laugh as Senator throws a roll of bread at Mason’s head.
“What’s the mission?” Dawson asks.
“It’s personal.”
Some guys nod, others snicker.
I scoop up more eggs. “What’s so funny?”
“Cap, you’re an asshole, and no woman in her thirties is gonna sleep with you.”
“What’s her age got to do with it?”
“Women that age know better.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means,” Tammy says as she steps back into the room, “calling me Kitten isn’t gonna cut it. And your friend is right. We do know better.” She places my iced tea on the table. “Anything else?”
“More coffee.”
Her eyes narrow.
“Kitten,” I add, just to play with her some more. She’s annoyed I’m running her back and forth. Well, I have to keep her away from the Suit so I don’t have to kill him, which is healthy for all of us.
Except my coffee doesn’t come, and Tammy doesn’t either. The ginger girl shows up to check on us, and I ask for more shit I don’t need to see if the girls decided to tag-team our party of seven, but no, Tammy’s staying in the main diner.
When the check arrives, I see Ginger’s name on it, meaning Tammy lost the table and the fat tip I was gonna give her. People in this town don’t come from money. This is working-class America, and life is tough out here.
My team files out, and I stay in the back room just to see if she’ll fucking come back and see me again. I sit for an hour, out here in the back with dirty dishes in front of me, doing what I hate most.
Waiting. No busboys come. No waitress comes to clean the table. Finally, I stand and stretch, cracking my neck before heading out to the main diner.
Tammy’s still working, all right.
When she sees me, she turns and practically bolts into the small hallway in the back. I walk after her, grab her wrist, and spin her around. I pin her against the wall. Her face lifts, and she’s staring right at me, almost daring me to kiss her.
“Meet me at Bee’s tonight,” I say and wait for her answer. This would be the time where a woman says she’s taken, if not married, and I walk away. Or shoot the competition. I’ll decide after she answers.
“No way.”
Going great so far. “Why not?” When faced with the why question, most people either get confused or defensive or they lie. Tammy might go with a lie. I’m trying to get a read on her face and body movements so I can tell if she’s spinning one in her head.
I spent almost twenty years in one military setting or another and often worked with CIA spies, watched them interrogate prisoners, learned from them, sometimes wondering if I chose the wrong profession, because I sure as fuck love getting the truth out of people.
“I don’t have a babysitter.”
Shit. I didn’t see that coming, but it’s true, and I recover fast only because I’m trained not to show shock. “Where’s the baby daddy?”
“Out of town.”
“For good?” I press.
“Temporary,” she says. Tammy stammered as she spoke, and she’s such a bad liar that I feel sorry I’ve cornered her the way a lion might corner a kitten. I back off, though not completely. I just give her some space in the hallway so she’s more comfortable telling more lies.
Chin up, she walks into the bathroom and slams the door. “Stay away from me, Reed MacLoyd.”
She said my name. Ha!
She must’ve seen it on the credit card I ran with her friend, or someone from the motel or, hell, a small-town news bulletin told her. Still, hurrah, motherfucker, she’s got my name. And that’s gonna be the end of her.
She’s mine, because my name from her lips sounds like she said she wants my dick, so I snort and get back to the shitty motel room I share with three other grown men so I can plan.
Tactical action must be immediate and massive so the target doesn’t know what hit her until she’s under me. By that time, the threat of rejection will be neutralized.