Chapter 9

Gage sat on the edge of the bed, watching Mackenzie sleep. He could tell from her slow, steady heart rate and even breathing that she was well on her way to dreamland. Not surprising. They’d gone at it for hours. She was sleeping the deep sleep of a well-satisfied woman. He only wished he could stay in bed with her. She’d worn him out, too.

After spending hours with her, rolling around in bed, on the floor, and up against the wall, he knew she was The One—period. He believed to his very core she was the woman he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with.

He glanced at the clock—0400 hours. He needed to move. Even though every fiber of his being demanded he climb into bed with Mackenzie, wrap his body protectively around her, and never let her go.

Perversely, that was part of the reason he had to leave. Mackenzie was in his life now and that meant she was in danger, unless he dealt with Hardy. Putting it off would only endanger Mackenzie even more.

He scribbled a quick note on a scrap of paper he found in her nightstand. Something about needing to get more condoms—and donuts. He didn’t think she’d wake up before he got back, but if she did, he didn’t want her freaking out and leaving the apartment looking for him. Or thinking he’d left her.

Gage dressed quickly and silently, then grabbed a copy of the apartment key Mackenzie had hanging on a hook in the kitchen. He checked his phone as he waited for the elevator and found that Mike had left a text with Hardy’s address. There were also notes about the layout of the place, like the number of guards and existing perimeter security systems. Efficient as always.

At that early hour, it took less than thirty minutes to get to Hardy’s residence just outside Southlake on a wooded section of Grapevine Lake. Gage stopped his car along a quiet lane near the shore. If anyone saw it, they’d assume it was a couple of kids making out down by the water. Few people, even cops, would get suspicious. Southlake wasn’t the kind of place where lowlifes hung out.

He weaved through the trees, letting his superior night vision guide him. Thank God Hardy liked his privacy. There were very few houses along this section of the lake. Not that Gage gave a damn. He would have found a way onto Hardy’s property without being seen if the man lived in the middle of a mall food court.

Gage found the perimeter fence quickly enough. It was an eight-foot high chain-link deal with a few sections filled in with older mortared stone. He prowled the length of it, checking for guards, cameras, and motion sensors. He found the only two cameras that covered this side of the property without even trying. They weren’t well hidden. It wasn’t difficult to stand out of their field of view since they seemed to be aimed to catch people on the narrow, paved pathway that ran just inside the fence. Apparently, security wasn’t too worried about someone hopping over the fence. But then again, who’d be dumb enough to trespass on property owned by Walter Hardy?

Next, Gage confirmed there were no passive infrared or microwave motion sensors, active infrared beams, or pressure pad sensors. He could have bypassed them, but it said a hell of a lot about Hardy’s arrogance. There was nothing to keep a person from slipping onto his property except a reputation for brutality and ruthlessness.

Gage had downplayed it for Mackenzie’s benefit, but he’d been worried about Hardy and what the man might do from the moment he’d learned his identity. Gage knew he was a powerful and dangerous man who wouldn’t hesitate to come after them if he believed they were responsible for his son’s death. By standing up to his thugs, Gage had hoped Hardy might back off. But from the bomb at the fake meth lab, it was obvious that plan hadn’t worked. Hardy was coming for Gage, and he didn’t mind killing the rest of the SWAT team to get him. For all Gage knew, the man intended to kill all of them anyway. Gage wasn’t going to let that happen.

There was a single light on in the back of the house. Probably where the security guard, or guards, stayed. Gage would hit that first. He’d do anything to protect his pack—and now Mackenzie. He didn’t want to kill Hardy in cold blood, but if that was the only way to stop the man and keep the people close to him safe, he’d do it without hesitation.

He only hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Gage moved along the fence until he was in a dead spot between the cameras. He still didn’t see any guards, but he could pick up their scent. It was blanketed by the stronger smell of gasoline, which made him think they probably patrolled the property in a golf cart at night. Since both odors lingered heavily in the air, that meant they’d been through here recently.

He found a place where the fence was screened by the low-hanging limbs of a big tree and placed his hand close to the chain link, but not quite touching. He didn’t feel anything that indicated it was electrified.

Gage looked around one more time, then let the claws on his right hand extend to their full length. God, that felt good. He hadn’t done it in a while. There wasn’t a lot of call for it in his day-to-day work. But he missed being able to let go and shift like that.

He slashed at the fence, sending pieces of chain link flying and opening a gap large enough for him to step through. Once he was on the other side, he listened carefully, but there still weren’t any sounds coming from the house.

As he crept slowly through the trees along the rear of the property, he considered what he knew about Walter Hardy.

He owned three different houses in the Dallas area, the other two being penthouse apartments downtown. He used one mostly for business meetings and for those times he stayed in the city. He’d given the other to his twenty-six-year-old son, Ryan, the presumptive heir to the Hardy name, fortune, and business.

There was no Mrs. Hardy so Gage didn’t have to worry about that. Ryan’s mother had divorced Walter and disappeared back to someplace in Eastern Europe years ago.

Gage kept moving toward the back door of the house, pulling on gloves as he went. He still had no idea what he was going to do once he got inside, but he didn’t want to leave fingerprints regardless.

He was about fifteen feet away from the back door of the house when it opened and a big man in dress pants, a white shirt, and a military buzz cut walked out.

Shit.

Gage thought for sure the guy had seen him, but one look at the man’s face changed his mind. He had that sleepy-eyed look of someone who’d just gotten out of bed. Probably a guard starting his shift.

Gage closed the distance between them, landing a solid right cross to the man’s jaw before he even knew what hit him. Gage caught the man and lowered him to the ground, then dragged him into the shadows of the trees. It wasn’t until he checked for a pulse that he realized the guy was one of the goons who’d come to the restaurant the other day. He didn’t bother zip-tying the man or stuffing something in his mouth. He’d be in and out of the house before the guy even woke up.

Gage darted a quick look around, then jogged over to the house. He tried the doorknob just to see if he’d get lucky. Well, damn, it was unlocked.

He quietly closed the door behind him, then soundlessly made his way through the darkened kitchen and down the hallway toward the room he’d seen with the light on—the one where the security guards hung out.

Their scent hit him before he even reached the partially opened door. Gage paused outside the room to do a quick recon. Two men sat on the couch, their backs to the door, their attention focused on the video game they were playing. They were so busy annihilating pretend monsters with their pretend weapons that Gage could have shot both of them and they never would have seen it coming.

Instead, he moved up behind them and punched one in the temple, bouncing his head off the other guard’s. Before the second guy could figure out what the hell happened, Gage hit him with a ridge hand strike to the side of the neck that knocked him as unconscious as his buddy.

This might take even less time than he thought.

Gage was heading for the steps when he almost walked into someone coming out of the bathroom. He recognized Roscoe Patterson’s ugly mug at the same time Hardy’s enforcer recognized him.

Patterson reacted faster than the other goons. Instead of reaching for a weapon he had no prayer of getting a hand on, he lashed out with a quick jab straight at Gage’s face.

If Gage hadn’t been a werewolf, the punch would have landed and probably made him see stars long enough for Patterson to go for his weapon. But Gage brought up his forearm, blocking the blow and connecting with the other man’s wrist hard enough to break something. Patterson didn’t even flinch. He merely shifted his stance and whipped out a knife with his other hand.

Gage jerked back, easily avoiding the blade, then caught Patterson’s arm just as he went in for another strike. The man’s eyes widened. That’s right, asshole. I’m faster, stronger, and a hell of a lot more dangerous than you are.

Gage delivered a jab to Patterson’s chin, following it up with an uppercut under the jaw, then a roundhouse kick that sent the man tumbling back ten feet to crash against the wall. Patterson slid to the floor, the knife slipping from his hand to land on the wood with a horrendous clatter. If the noise hadn’t been enough to wake up Hardy, nothing would.

Shit.

Gage bounded for the stairs, taking them four at a time. Hardy was probably on the phone to the cops even now. Wouldn’t that be ironic? A murdering scumbag calling the cops to protect him from another cop.

But when he reached the top of the stairs, it was to find Hardy bursting out of his bedroom, a gold-finished automatic in his hands. Before Hardy could pull the trigger, Gage closed the distance between them and wrapped his hand around the pistol, ripping it out of the man’s grasp. He shoved Hardy back into the bedroom with a growl.

Gage followed as the man stumbled back, continuing to push and shove until he’d moved Hardy all the way back to his bed and knocked him across it.

“You!” Hardy shouted. “I’ll have your fucking badge for this.”

He tried to get to his feet, but Gage pushed him back down. “That might be a bit difficult since I’m not wearing a badge at the moment.”

Hardy’s heart sped up as he suddenly realized there weren’t any other cops there shouting orders or waving warrants. There was just Gage—and the gun he’d taken from Hardy.

The fastest way to make his problems go away was to kill Hardy. And if Gage was smart, that’s what he’d do.

Hardy slowly inched toward the head of the bed. Did he have another gun in the nightstand? Gage hoped so. Because he couldn’t kill a defenseless man in cold blood. It just wasn’t in him.

He only hoped Hardy didn’t know that.

Gage found a chair and moved it closer to the bed, positioning it so that he could look Hardy in the eye while pointing the man’s own gun at him. Damn, a Desert Eagle Mark XIX, in titanium gold no less. He really hated it when scumbags carried such nice weapons.

“You tried to kill me and my team yesterday.”

Hardy eyed the gun as he shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was at a meeting with the mayor all day yesterday. As a matter of fact, we spent some of that time talking about your out-of-control SWAT team. And about how you killed my son.”

Gage leveled the gun at the space right between the man’s eyes. “Do you think I care that you had one of your people set that bomb, or make the call to lure us there? You made it happen, which is all that matters.”

Hardy’s gaze nervously darted to the gun again.

“And as for your son, you know as well as I do that he signed his own execution order the moment he decided to kill innocent people.”

Hardy didn’t respond to Gage’s statement, but he didn’t deny it, either.

“You won’t shoot me,” he finally said.

Gage could tell by the man’s erratic heartbeat Hardy didn’t really believe that.

“I just walked into your house all by myself, put down four guards like they weren’t even there, then took this thing away from you like you were a two-year-old.” Gage gestured with the Desert Eagle. “Tell me again why I won’t do exactly anything I want?”

Clearly, Hardy had been under the assumption that if he held out long enough and kept the conversation going just a little longer, his men would come running to the rescue. The man had spent most of his adult life scaring the hell out of people, but Gage wasn’t scared, and Hardy knew it.

“What do you want?” Hardy demanded. “If you wanted me dead, you would have done it already. So, what is it? Money?”

Typical. The bastard thought all he had to do was wave a wad of cash in someone’s face and all his problems would go away. Gage bit back a snarl. “I don’t want your money.”

“What then?”

Gage stood up and moved closer to the bed, keeping the pistol trained on the bull’s-eye he’d mentally painted on Hardy’s forehead. He didn’t want to kill Hardy. Even after what the man had tried to do to his pack, Gage couldn’t just execute him in cold blood. That would make him no better than Hardy. But he had to make Hardy believe he would kill him, so the man would be scared so shitless he’d back off.

“It’s simple really,” he said. “If you ever make a move against me or anyone close to me again, I’ll track you down, kill every one of your guards, then rip out your fucking heart.”

To make sure Hardy knew he meant every word, Gage jammed the bolt carrier back so hard he ripped it off the rails.

He tossed both pieces of the weapon on the bed beside Hardy. “Is that easy enough for you to understand?”

Hardy didn’t answer. He was too busy staring at the Desert Eagle Gage had just destroyed as easily as if it had been made of plastic.

Gage let out the same low-throated growl he used when he wanted to force a member of his pack to pay attention or behave. It had the same effect on Hardy.

“Do I make myself clear?” he asked.

Hardy swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Then we’re done here.”

With that, Gage turned and walked out.

* * *

Gage walked back into Mackenzie’s apartment just before six a.m. Including the stop at the store for donuts and condoms—a purchase that had earned him one hell of a strange look from the cashier—he’d been gone for an hour and thirty-five minutes.

He didn’t hear any movement coming from the bedroom, so he left the donuts on the kitchen counter and silently made his way in that direction. The sun was peeking in the window at Mackenzie, who was huddled under the blanket fast asleep. She looked so beautiful it made his chest hurt.

Gage stripped off his clothes and set the economy-sized box of condoms on the nightstand, then climbed into bed. He pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her silky hair, breathing in her scent. God, she was like heaven.

Mackenzie mumbled something unintelligible and pressed herself back against him. He tightened his arm around her, holding her close. He hadn’t intended to do anything more than fall asleep with her, but she wiggled her bottom against his crotch, making his cock harden.

He stifled a groan and tried to put a little space between his hard-on and her very warm, very soft ass, but it was impossible. Even though she seemed to be completely zonked out, she scooted back even more and rotated her hips in a very sexy dance that made his cock poke her in certain places completely on its own.

Mackenzie stirred.

Ah, hell. He might be dead tired, but apparently certain parts of his anatomy weren’t. Reaching for the box of condoms, he couldn’t think of a better way to start the day.

* * *

Mac snuggled into the pillow with a sigh. Was that bacon and eggs she smelled? She inhaled deeply. Damn, it was. Gage was making breakfast for her. Which meant he must have run to the store because she hadn’t bought bacon and eggs in…forever. Normally, she didn’t eat stuff like that, but she was starving. Not surprising. She and Gage had worked up quite an appetite last night. Not to mention this morning. She smiled at the memory.

She had been awakened at an insanely early hour by Gage’s very hard cock slowly sliding into her very wet pussy. He’d made slow, teasing love to her as they spooned together in bed. He had moved in and out of her from behind while one hand caressed every inch of her body—her face, her neck, her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, her clit…oh yes, her clit. It was, without a doubt, the most romantic sex she’d ever had in her life. And afterward, all she could do was pull his arm around her and go back to sleep.

Now he was making breakfast for her? What had she done to deserve this man?

It was hard to leave the cozy nest of blankets, but she forced herself to climb out of bed. She washed her face and brushed her teeth, then pulled on the first piece of clothing at hand—Gage’s uniform T-shirt. But if she was wearing his T-shirt, what was Gage wearing? Eager to find out, she ran a brush through her hair and hurried out of the bedroom.

The sight that met her as she walked into the kitchen was even better than she’d imagined. Her big, strapping lover was at the stove wearing nothing but those really tight boxer briefs of his. Wow, he had a great butt.

Mac went up behind him and wrapped her arms around his stomach, pressing herself against him as she kissed the warm skin of his back.

He smiled over his shoulder at her. “You could have stayed in bed. I was planning to bring this in to you.”

She ran her hands over the muscles of his chest and abs as she rested her cheek against his back. “As much as I like the idea of breakfast in bed, I don’t think we would have gotten to the bacon and eggs part if you served them to me dressed like this.”

He chuckled as he finished cooking the eggs—half a dozen over medium by the looks of them—and transferred them to plates where the bacon and toast were already waiting. She couldn’t help but shake her head as she watched him work. He moved with the quick grace of a person who’d been working a grill for years. She couldn’t flip an egg to save her life, which was why she always made scrambled, when she had them at all.

“I can go put some more clothes on, if you think you’ll be distracted,” he said as he carried the plates to the table. The coffee was already poured and steaming.

She shook her head as she sat down. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble. I’ll just have to control myself.”

He slanted her a sexy grin. “You can always give me back my T-shirt.”

“I could, but I prefer you the way you are.”

Gage attacked his food. It took her a little longer to get her eggs and bacon cut up, but when she finally took her first bite, she found herself eating almost as fast as he was.

“This is really good.”

“It’s just bacon and eggs.”

She took another forkful of both, then followed it with a bite of the toast he’d already buttered for her. “It’s better than anything I could make.”

Gage took a swallow of coffee. “I could give you a few lessons if you’re interested.”

She wouldn’t mind getting some lessons from him in the kitchen, just not the kind he was talking about. “I have a better idea. If you keep making breakfast for us, I’ll make sure you always wake up hungry. How’s that?”

The heat in his eyes almost made her swoon. “Deal.”

She took another bite of toast. “So, what’s on the agenda today? If we assume that you’re planning to follow your doctor’s order and get some rest?”

He wiped up his plate with the rest of his toast, then popped it in his mouth, devouring her with his eyes as he chewed. She wondered if he was envisioning all the different ways they could have sex together for the next two days.

If so, she liked the way he thought.

“I thought we might just hang out together. If that’s okay with you?” he said when he was done chewing. “Though I guess I need to run by my place and grab some clothes and stuff.”

She eyed him over the rim of her mug. “Seems like you have all the clothes you need, if you ask me.”

He chuckled. “While I don’t have a problem with that, I think we’ll have to leave your apartment at least once. You don’t have enough food in here to keep us both going for a whole weekend.”

Mac thought about how much he’d eaten last night, and this morning. He’d consumed about three days’ worth of food in less than twenty-four hours. Yeah, maybe they’d need to go out and shop some.

“Okay,” she agreed. “But I’m coming with you. I want to see where you live.”

“Sounds good. Just don’t hold what you see there against me. I don’t spend a lot of time at my place, so it’s not as nice as yours.”

She steeled herself. When a guy said something like that, it usually meant he hadn’t cleaned in a month.

It turned out that Gage’s place was nothing like what he’d described and a lot cleaner than she’d expected. It was a first-floor, one-bedroom apartment with a tiny eat-in kitchen, an equally small living room, and a guest bathroom. It was probably less than eight hundred square feet total. But while there wasn’t much in the place, what was there was neat, organized, and dust-free. She couldn’t say the same for her apartment.

“I’m going to pack a bag,” Gage said as he headed for the bedroom. “There’s some soda in the fridge if you want it.”

She didn’t really want a soda, but she did want to check out the fridge. You could learn a lot about a man from what he had in there.

Like the rest of his place, Gage’s refrigerator was clean and organized, and way better stocked than hers. In addition to soda, beer, and bottled water, there were a variety of lunch meats, cheeses, and condiments. Gage was obviously big into sandwiches. But a look in the freezer showed a distinct lack of TV dinners. There was plenty of meat, though. Maybe the two of them should hang out over here—they’d definitely eat better.

She grabbed one of the bottles of water and wandered into the living room. Gage’s apartment lacked that cozy feminine touch. It was sparely furnished with a utilitarian-looking sofa and matching chair. It was also sparsely decorated, with the exception of one wall that held a dozen framed photographs and a few military-themed knickknacks sitting on a shelf in the bookcase. She found herself smiling at the pictures of Gage in various military and police settings.

He was younger in the military ones, but she still recognized him. Most of them were of Gage with eight other men, usually hamming it up for the photo, with their arms around each other or with their various weapons held casually in their hands. Gage looked really happy in all the pictures.

The clothing had obviously changed in the more recent pictures, with Gage wearing the standard police uniform in some, civilian clothes in others, and his SWAT gear in the most recent. She couldn’t help noticing that while the poses were very similar in all the recent photos, Gage wasn’t smiling in any of them. It made her feel as if she was witnessing a loss of innocence one frame at a time.

She noticed something else, too. While Gage was easily the biggest man in any of the military photos, it didn’t compare to how much larger he seemed in the more recent pictures. She moved back and forth, comparing him over the years. It looked like he’d not only put on muscle after leaving the Army, but grown a few inches as well.

Running out of stuff to see in the living room, she meandered toward the bedroom. Gage was standing naked in front of a tall dresser, going through a drawer of underwear.

Mac stopped and let herself enjoy the view. Out of the corner of her eye, she took in several other facets of the room—a big bed, another dresser with its drawers hanging half-open, a wall closet holding mostly uniforms, and a black duffel bag sitting on the floor half-full of clothes and toiletries.

But mostly, she looked at Gage and that amazing naked body of his.

She bit her lip as heat pooled between her thighs. It shouldn’t be possible to be aroused. They’d made love so many times last night she should have been satisfied for the next month. But that wasn’t the case at all. As she enjoyed the play of muscles over his tight ass and broad back, she felt herself getting wet. She was definitely going to have to change her panties when they got back to her place.

How the hell did Gage do this to her?

He stopped, his head coming up sharply. Then he turned to her with a smoldering smile. The hungry expression only served to make her wetter, and left her wondering if he’d picked up on her arousal.

“I’m almost ready.”

Against her will, her eyes drifted down to the perfect, thick cock at the junction of his muscular thighs. His shaft pulsed slightly, then slowly hardened.

“You most certainly are,” she murmured, only realizing after the fact that she’d said it out loud.

He closed the distance between them in two strides, yanking her fully clothed body against his completely naked one and kissing her hard. It felt so wicked and so perfect, and it took her breath away. He tasted so good, and felt even better. Damn, she was practically vibrating with need. This must be what they meant when they said two people were sexually compatible because right now, she couldn’t imagine another man in the world who could make her feel like this.

The sensation of his now rock-hard cock pressing against her stomach was enough to almost drive her crazy, and she would have dropped to her knees in worship to it, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead he picked her up and carried her over to his bed. He yanked off her flip-flops and jeans and yet it still wasn’t fast enough to suit her.

A tiny part of her—the part that had nothing to do with helping Gage strip off her panties so he could flip her over on her hands and knees—wondered how she could possibly go from not even thinking about sex to wanting it so badly she didn’t care if he ripped her clothes to tatters. But one look at him as he took a condom packet out of the bedside table and rolled it on told her everything she needed to know.

Gage made it possible for her to act like this. She wanted him so badly because that was exactly the same way he wanted her. Like she was the only thing he could think about. Like she was as important to his survival as air.

When he pulled her ass closer toward the edge of the bed and plunged into her wetness, they both released groans of pure pleasure. His was a deeper—almost possessive—growl, but hers wasn’t any less animalistic. She wanted him to possess her completely, make her his in every way possible.

His hands firmly grasped her hips as he slowly moved inside her. With each thrust, he pumped harder and harder until he buried himself all the way to her very core. She was panting so hard she was almost dizzy.

The rush of her approaching orgasm didn’t surprise her. She’d learned last night that Gage could make her come almost anytime he wanted—and right now he wanted her to come right away.

Her teeth clamped down on the blanket covering his bed and she swore she could taste him on it. That thought, however crazy, only brought her climax on faster. She screamed into the bed, clutching the covers as her whole body shuddered violently. And when the first waves of orgasm passed, she got an even firmer grip. Because there was something else last night had taught her. Gage wouldn’t stop with making her come only once. He would take her like this until she was sure she’d pass out—then he’d make her come even harder.

* * *

Mac cuddled against Gage’s chest, running her fingers over the muscles and lightly tracing his tattoos. She’d never been into guys with tats, but he made them work. She’d seen the wolf-head SWAT tattoo during PT and when they’d made love the previous night. But she hadn’t gotten a good look at the other tattoo—the one he called his Ranger Scroll—until now. She traced her fingers along the black ribbon outline with its red inner line. Inside both lines were letters and numbers.

“Second Ranger, I get,” she said softly. “What’s BN stand for?”

It took Gage a minute to answer—he was pretty much comatose beneath her in his own post-orgasmic bliss. “Battalion. I was in the 2nd Ranger Battalion out of Fort Lewis.”

He said the words so quietly she wasn’t sure if she should ask him anything else about it. She remembered how he’d smiled in all the military pictures out on the wall, but looked almost somber in every photo after that. She wanted to know more about Gage, though. Hell, she wanted to know everything about him there was to know.

“I remember seeing in your public relations bio that you spent six years in the Army. Was all of it with the 2nd?”

“Not counting Basic and initial schooling, yeah, I was in the 2nd the whole time. I came in right after Desert Storm kicked off and was out by the middle of ’97.”

“I saw the pictures out on the wall. Were they your friends in the 2nd?”

Of course they’d been his friends—he’d taken pictures with them. But he seemed to understand what she was asking.

“They were more than that. They were like my family,” he said quietly. “First Platoon, First Rifle Squad. My brothers.”

Mac realized then that he’d never said a word about family until now, and when he did, it was in terms of the soldiers he’d served with.

“They sound like amazing guys. Do you stay in touch with them?”

Gage didn’t answer, and the silence stretched out until she lifted her head off his chest to look at him. His eyes were closed, and when they opened, she couldn’t miss the sadness in them.

“No,” he said. “They’re all dead.”

Crap. Why the hell had she asked that question? Couldn’t she have just left well enough alone?

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a painful subject.”

He gently twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “It’s okay. You couldn’t have known. It was a long time ago anyway. It hurts to think about, but not like it used to.”

She rested her head on his chest again, furiously trying to think of something that would help change the topic of the conversation. But her mind was completely blank.

“It was back in August, 1996.”

Gage’s voice was soft and so full of sadness that she almost stopped him, but she didn’t. If he wanted to talk, she’d shut up and listen.

“We were supposed to be on a simple training rotation in Kuwait. You know, run around, shoot some blanks, cross-train with the Kuwaitis and Saudis. But for some reason, somebody with a star on his shoulder decided to send First Platoon up to the northern part of Iraq—the part that’s called Iraqi Kurdistan now—to conduct some goodwill development with the regional Kurd forces. My squad leader tried to point out it wasn’t even a Ranger job, but nobody really cared about that, so we were sent up there anyway.”

He fell silent for so long that Mac thought he was finished. But then she realized she could hear his heart beating fast beneath her ear.

“It wasn’t so bad at first. Kind of fun, actually,” he continued. “The platoon leader had each of the squads farmed out, working with a different part of the Kurdish militia. They certainly needed our help, so none of us minded. Then on the thirty-first, Saddam got a hair up his ass and decided to send his forces up to the town of Irbil for a little ethnic cleansing. Right where our squad was set up. Nine of us, stuck right in the middle of a place we really weren’t supposed to be, with no support and almost no ammo.”

Mac held her breath, waiting.

“As you can imagine it didn’t go well for us. We were fighting side by side with the Kurds, and we put up one hell of a defense, but they didn’t have much in the way of heavy equipment, and we didn’t have any. A whole lot of people died in a really short period of time, including every member of my squad but me. My squad leader died in my arms as I tried to drag him out.”

Mac was crying, and didn’t have a clue why. She hadn’t known those men. But Gage had, and their deaths had hurt him, so she hurt, too. “August of 1996,” she murmured. “Isn’t that what they called Desert Strike? I remember reading about it somewhere, but I don’t remember seeing anything about any US ground casualties. We just dropped a bunch of bombs and fired off some cruise missiles.”

He snorted. “Yeah, that’s what they called it. But the bombing and cruise missiles happened in the days after the initial attack. Didn’t do us or the Kurds any good. My squad was wiped out by then and I just barely dragged my shot-up ass back to the extraction point in time to hook up with the rest of the platoon. They’d been pretty beat up, too, but nothing like my squad. The worst part? The official report reads that my squad members all died in a training accident down in Kuwait. No one wanted to admit the US even had ground forces up in the Kurdish region.”

Crap. “Is that why you decided to get out?”

He hesitated for a long time before answering. “That had a lot to do with it. I just couldn’t be part of the big machine anymore. They didn’t even care about us.”

Mac understood Gage a little better now than she had before. How he’d risen so fast through the Dallas PD ranks, why he’d taken over the SWAT team and rebuilt it in his image. They were an organization that took care of their own above all else.

His arm tightened around her. “Sorry I unloaded on you like that. I’m not sure why I did. It definitely doesn’t qualify as romantic pillow talk.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I get the feeling you’ve needed to tell somebody that story for a long time. I’m just glad it was me.”

“I guess you’re right.” He sighed. “I try not to think too much about that part of my past. I didn’t even realize it was weighing on me until I told you about it.”

She tilted her face up to kiss him. It was amazing how close she felt to him after that little peek into his past. It made her want to learn everything about him. “You can tell me anything.”

He gazed at her so deeply and thoughtfully she almost teared up again. “I might just take you up on that offer sometime.”

She rested her head on his chest again, smiling as she realized his heart was now beating in the strong, slow rhythm she was used to. “Anytime you’re ready.”