14
Farley, WY
There was a restaurant attached to the hotel, an IHOP knockoff with vinyl booths, silk plants, and a breakfast buffet to die for. That was where Jake went looking for his targets, and that was where he found them.
Before he left base – well, the garage – Ramirez had pulled him aside, hands on her hips, and said, “Why are we dragging our feet? We have the targets in range; let’s close in and make the arrest.”
He’d silently wondered if questioning his authority was a personality trait, or something she’d picked up after she was discharged; a show of frustration much like his own with her situation. Her file indicated that she had no family and had enlisted at her local recruitment center on her eighteenth birthday. She’d poured her life into the Army – and barely escaped with it. Maybe she’d been promised a possible return to active duty and was chomping at the bit just like him.
She hadn’t been touched by Ruby Russell, though; hadn’t felt the physical shove and the tingle of her skin healing.
So he’d frowned at her and said, “These two have evaded eight recovery teams, and killed seventeen men.”
Her brows had shot up.
“We’re going to do this slowly and carefully. I’m off to do recon, and I’ll let the rest of the team know what I find.”
She hadn’t argued after that, and the others had been content to keep playing small town blue collar workers. Now here he stood on the blue rug inside the restaurant, gaze going across the room to the table where Rooster Palmer and Ruby Russell sat eating breakfast.
Jake took a moment, before they noticed him, to study them.
Palmer held himself like a hunted man. Elbows on the table, head low, eyes up, shoveling in food mindlessly; it was fuel for him, something to keep his body going, and nothing he enjoyed. Jake could see the bulge of a gun at his hip, and the shadow of another in the shoulder holster visible under the unzipped halves of his jacket. There was a picture of him in the file back at the garage, a handsome, stern-faced kid in his dress uniform. He’d aged since that photo was taken; nearly died. If his discharge paperwork was to be believed, his doctors hadn’t expected him to ever regain full mobility. And yet Jake had seen him haul the girl out of the restaurant, strong and very much mobile.
Across from him, picking choice bits off plates of sausage, and bacon, and hash browns, and French toast sticks, Ruby looked bright and vibrant as a little twist of flame, her russet hair capturing the light, her sweet face alight with simple happiness.
The made a strange tableau: the hardened warrior and the lively sprite of a girl. Too close in age to be father and daughter, too far apart to be lovers. Brother and sister maybe. Or, the truth: high-level target and self-made bodyguard.
It didn’t matter what they looked like, or why they did so; his job was to bring them in. Jake shook off all other thoughts and approached their table.
Ruby noticed him first. Her hand froze, a long drop of syrup falling off the bit of toast she held, landing on her plate with a quiet plop that seemed deafening in the sudden silence. She didn’t turn toward him. Neither did Palmer; the Marine held perfectly still save his right hand, which moved to his hip, and the gun there.
“If it’s alright,” Jake said carefully, “I was gonna come give you an update on your truck.”
Ruby lowered her toast to the plate, movements slow and measured – save the fast trembling of her pulse in the creamy hollow of her throat.
Palmer turned his head, gave Jake the kind of flat, unreadable look he’d always associated with the Marines; like they were all taking your measure as a man and finding you lacking on all counts. After a long moment, he nodded toward an empty chair, and Jake slid into it as casually as possible. Internally, he wanted to duck for cover and draw his own weapon. But he couldn’t afford any slip-ups now. Not when he was making progress.
“Good morning,” he said to Ruby, sparing her a quick glance. It was polite, for starters, and also because Palmer might appreciate him looking away, showing enough trust to give him an open angle to his throat.
She blinked, startled. “Good morning.”
When he looked back at Palmer, the man was frowning. “What about the truck?”
“Right. Basically, it’s fucked. Spence can rebuild the transmission, but it could take as long as a week. He ordered parts first thing this morning, and they’re on rush, but we’re still looking at at least three days. Probably more.”
Palmer clenched his jaw, lips pressed tight together.
“Did you have any luck with the classifieds?”
He snorted and glanced back at his plate, picked up his fork again. “Nah.”
“Sorry I don’t have better news,” Jake offered.
“That’s alright, it’s not your fault,” Ruby said, giving him a shaky smile. “Thank you for all your help.”
“It’s the least I could do after…” Jake trailed off, opening his hand on the tabletop, showing the unblemished skin on the back of it.
“Oh.” Her cheeks pinked. She was one of those redheads whose blush went all down her throat and disappeared into the collar of her shirt. “Well, I–”
“Ruby,” Palmer barked. “Didn’t you want to get some fruit?”
“I…Oh. I did.” Her gaze moved between them, worried. “I’ll just go and…”
“Yeah. ‘Fore it gets picked over.”
There was no one else in the restaurant, but Ruby nodded and pushed her chair back, walked over to the buffet.
Palmer’s eyes followed her progress, the gleam in them almost feverish; the gaze of someone who’d been in the sandbox too long, who saw hostiles in ever corner, behind every mundane potted plant. He kept his voice low, just for the two of them. “Alright, what do you want? And don’t gimme any bullshit about being a good Samaritan. You don’t owe us shit.”
Jake sighed. “Honestly?”
Palmer’s gaze slid over; his hand was still on his gun. “Yeah. That’d be good.”
He’d known, after that first side-of-the-road encounter, that he’d have to tread carefully. And so he’d rehearsed what he’d say in this situation, because he knew it was coming. And yet, he hadn’t prepared for the way the guy was staring at him: like killing him was preferable to listening to anything he had to say.
Jake took a gamble. “Look, I know you’re not gonna want to hear this – being the trigger-happy, paranoid freak that you obviously are – but I do a lot of pickups on the highway, sometimes almost a hundred miles away, and I hear lots of people’s stories when I’m giving them lifts.”
Palmer glowered at him, but he leaned forward a fraction, and that was something.
“Last year,” Jake continued, dropping his voice to a whisper, thanking God he’d always had a cool head in a firefight, because that’s what this felt like, “I picked up a long-haul trucker who’d just come through Tulsa, and he started telling me this crazy story. Said he was walking out of a gas station and saw this Tahoe full of black-ops looking guys go running across the parking lot, wearing all kinds of riot gear, toting full autos, toward this guy. This scary-looking guy in a Dodge truck with a redheaded girl with him.”
Palmer stiffened all over; he stopped breathing.
“People starting running and screaming, and taking cellphone videos. And this scary guy – this long-haired, military looking guy – he pulls a gun and tells the guys that if they don’t stop they’re all gonna wish they had. And they don’t stop. And they catch on fire.”
Palmer let out one long, steady breath, expression never changing.
“When I saw you guys in the diner,” Jake said, even softer, sympathetic now, “and then when she spilled her coffee, and she healed me…I put two-and-two together.”
“Yeah. So,” Palmer bit out through clenched teeth. “What you gonna do about it?”
Jake shrugged. “I’m gonna see that your truck gets fixed and send you on your way. I figure it’s none of my business who you two are.”
“Yeah? That’s what you figure?”
Jake leaned back in his chair. “I loved being in the Army. I don’t know how I woulda survived without it. But I know that sometimes your country doesn’t always have your back. I know sometimes you have to go against an order.”
Something like recognition sparked in Palmer’s eyes, but briefly, there and gone again in a heartbeat.
“I don’t know what you’re running from, but I know you’re running. I know that your girl is special–”
Palmer growled.
“–and I know that being special can put a target on your back. I’m not a good Samaritan, no; just a guy who’s seen my fair share of people being used for the wrong reasons.”
They stared at one another, unblinking.
“So,” Palmer said. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. I don’t figure you’ll trust me, but I’m offering my help all the same.”
Ruby’s chair scraped back as she returned, bearing a plate heaped with semi-fresh buffet fruit. She looked between them, missing nothing, a little notch between her brows. But she kept her voice light when she said, “They have pineapple. Do you want some?”
“Sure,” Palmer said. He gave Jake one last warning glance, and then looked away, showing his own throat. He moved his hand from his gun to reach for his fork, and Jake felt like that was a small victory.