Chapter Eight
Since they were walking on a road—well, dirt track was a more apt description—Cam wanted to set a faster pace to make the next village by evening. It should have been easier going than when they’d navigated the uneven terrain and underbrush of the forest, but he had to take into account the two fighter pilots who weren’t trained for this sort of thing, one of them with an injured ankle.
They’d gotten half an hour out of the village when Seb caught up with him. He could already guess how the conversation would go, and who had put him up to it.
“Hey, Cam—”
“No.”
Seb frowned. “Look, buddy—”
“No.”
“I just want to talk—”
“No.” He put a bit more emphasis behind the third negative, but it seemed Seb wasn’t going to take the hint, and judging by his glare, wasn’t impressed with his tactic.
“Are you going to let me say this, or do I have to give you a beatdown before you listen?”
He cast Seb an incredulous glance. The fighter pilot might have an inch or so of height on him, but definitely didn’t match him in muscle mass. He’d have to be having a very bad day or already be half dead before Seb ever managed to take him out.
“Fine,” Seb huffed. “We both know I couldn’t take you. Whatever. You still need to chill it down a notch and listen to me.”
Damn Seb. The guy wouldn’t leave him alone until he got to say his piece, so he clamped his jaw and nodded.
“Okay, good.” Seb glanced around before continuing. “I don’t know what the deal between you and Bren is—”
“I am not discussing that with you.”
If Seb planned on defending her, or trying to convince him Bren wasn’t that bad, this conversation was over. He’d put up with Seb’s pestering for the rest of the mission, but he was not talking about her with anyone.
He was pissed enough about the situation without anyone else weighing in. He’d actually started thinking she wasn’t like her brother after all. How much of an idiot could he be? It was that damned hair of hers, combined with her blue eyes that made her too distracting. After pulling her out of the hunter’s trap and having her body pressed up against him, his hormones had sparked with all the subtilty of fireworks exploding, which had obviously obliterated his common sense. No one could ever claim their libido had a lick of sense, but his must have set a benchmark for stupidity. Or more like temporary insanity.
At the outset she’d been steadfast, reliable, sensible, and definitely tough enough to hold her own. She’d taken everything in her stride. Not only did he respect the hell out of that in a soldier, but he also liked it in a friend. In a woman, he’d always found it alluring. He was a simple man; he didn’t have the time or patience to waste brain power on figuring out people who played games. And it had seemed Bren didn’t fall into that category.
But then she’d gone and engaged with the two men in the village without clearing it with him or giving any thought to the risk. She wasn’t trained in operating on the ground, on clandestine missions, on how to gather intel while maintaining invisibility. No doubt those two men would remember her. Could tell others about the woman with the curly blond hair and blue eyes who’d seemed overly interested in a crashed UEF ship. Once she became a target, the rest of the team became vulnerable as well.
It was exactly the kind of move he’d worried she would make, was why he’d had one eye on her ever since they’d crossed enemy lines—so she didn’t put his team and mission in jeopardy.
What had happened was as much his fault as it was hers, which was partly why he was so pissed—he couldn’t exactly kick his own ass, no matter how much he deserved it. Because yep, he’d forgotten she was Jordie Brenner’s sister, had forgotten to see past the gorgeous tumble of hair, the beguiling blue eyes and tough-chick attitude, and let her go off by herself to get the juice, assuming she couldn’t get herself into trouble in those few minutes it would take to go in and come out again.
As much as it pissed him off, he’d been left wishing she hadn’t done it. That the kindling of respect that had flamed to life within him could have been fanned into something more substantial. That he could relax his guard enough to trust her and give him one less thing to worry about. Besides, he’d actually started to like her, which made him question his own judgment. Had he really been dumb enough to fall for the charm of another Brenner?
“All right, Cam,” Seb said after a few yards of silence had passed under their boots. “I know you’ve got your mission and we’re just tagging along. And one of the reasons you allowed it is my contact with the rebels. But you did agree to let Bren and me come, knowing we have our own agenda.”
Hell. Seb might have been a pretty boy, but he had brains behind the façade of good times and sarcasm.
“So far, you’re only telling me things I already know.”
“The jet isn’t that far out of our way. There’s no reason we can’t take a small detour to check it out.”
He wanted to snap back that there was every reason not to detour, but all of them started and ended with Bren, which made him question the validity of his decision.
Hell, she had him so twisted up, he didn’t even know if he was making the right call for the sake of the mission. Was he simply reacting on emotion and not letting logic dictate his actions? The thought horrified him.
There had to be a solution if he thought about it rationally. A way he could keep on point to contact the rebels, while Seb and Bren followed up any leads on their lost fighter pilot. Even if those leads had come about by questionable means.
“How about I let you take Harlow, and the two of you check out the wreckage while the rest of us continue to the next village?”
It seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan to him, but Seb was already shaking his head. “No dice. You’ll have to send Bren with Harlow.”
Dammit, why did everything keep coming back to that woman?
“Why?” He tried not to clench his jaw over the word, but failed miserably, leaving Seb eyeing him like he’d left his sanity back on base. Hell, maybe he had, agreeing to bring Theresa Brenner, of all people, along on this mission.
“The ship malfunctioned and never sent a final coordinate, otherwise we would have already known where it went down and where Shen landed after ejecting. If we can recover the black box, it’ll still have flight data on it, then we can estimate a probable trajectory and landing zone for Shen. Bren is way better at that kind of stuff than me. She’s CAFF for a reason, buddy.”
Of course she was.
No way could he trust her judgment, and he couldn’t understand how she’d made CAFF and been entrusted with overseeing all the fighter pilots on the ship. Had anyone ever stopped to question if Bren could have handled the battle differently from the decks of the Knox so that Shen hadn’t ended up ejecting behind enemy lines?
No one had questioned her.
If Bren was the one who needed to go to the site, he sure as hell wasn’t sending Harlow, who wouldn’t know he needed to be on guard in case she made any other poor choices.
“All right. You and the others continue on to the village. I’ll take Bren, myself.” He came to a stop so he could explain the development in their plan to the rest of the team.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Seb muttered under his breath.
He cut Seb a hard look. Maybe the guy wasn’t directly under his command, but he didn’t appreciate anyone questioning him at the best of times, least of all when he had a loose cannon to deal with and a secondary mission complicating this already complex and risky assignment.
Seb held up both hands. “Forget I said anything.”
The fighter pilot moved off to stand with his CAFF, while the others took the momentary halt to grab a drink.
“As you all know, Lieutenants Rayne and Brenner accompanied us with their own objective in mind. The jet of the missing fighter pilot, Sub-Officer Shen, went down not too far from here. I’m going to take Brenner to check the wreckage, but I want the rest of you to stay on point. Continue to the village. Brenner and I will catch up with you in a day or so.”
His men nodded without a question or comment between them. Just the way he liked it. Just the way he expected things to run. They secured their drink canisters while Seb and Bren bid each other good-bye, exchanging promises to be careful.
The group of four set off down the road, leaving him alone with Bren.
Shit, he hadn’t given this aspect of the detour any thought whatsoever.
Over the years, they’d maintained a polite but hostile distance. But whether it was the fact they’d been forced to interact, or something else altogether, in the past few days, the barriers had started crashing down around him, bringing up things that were better left in the past. Making old wounds ache again. Taking him back to a time he preferred not to remember.
The last thing he wanted to do was discuss Jordie, but despite his better judgment, his curiosity had been churning for the last hour over what she’d said in the alleyway. I know what really happened. I know what you did.
The question of just what the hell Jordie had told her was smoldering like a chemical burn, burning deeper with each passing moment.
He had no doubt the guy had painted him as the villain of the story, but even that was a stretch. Reading between the lines, it seemed Bren believed him entirely responsible for what had gone down, when the truth was he’d only tried to salvage what was left of a completely fucked-up mission, doing everything in his power to keep Brenner and himself alive until they’d made it to safety.
Maybe he was better off not knowing. Did it really matter what she believed happened? He’d been there, he’d lived through it. He had the truth. But for some damned, moronic reason, he was starting to care what she thought of him.
He grabbed his canteen from the side of his pack and took a quick drink before looking over at Bren.
Right. They were alone. No team to act as a buffer. He was willing to put what had happened in the village behind him and act like an adult.
“How’s your ankle?” he asked as a safe way to begin the conversation.
Except apparently it wasn’t, because she aimed a scowl in his direction.
“It’s fine. It won’t slow us down, if that’s why you’re asking.”
“It wasn’t.” Seemed like she was about as impressed at being alone with him as he was.
“Why are we doing this?” She crossed her arms, hostility in every line of her body.
“I thought you wanted to check out the wreckage—”
“Don’t play dumb, when we both know you’re not.” She took several short angry strides toward him. “When I tried to suggest we detour to the downed jet because it wasn’t that far out of our way, you refused to hear a word of it. Then, you spend two minutes talking to Seb, and suddenly you’re all for it.”
What could he say? She’d called him on it and they both knew it. He wasn’t proud to admit it, but he hadn’t performed his best on this mission. At this point, silence was probably his best defense.
“Is it because I’m a woman? I thought we left that kind of sexism behind in the twenty-first century.”
Hell, she might as well have sucker punched him. He never had been and never would be some sexist Neanderthal.
“It is not because you’re a woman,” he returned heatedly, even though he was trying not to let this dissolve into an argument.
“Then what is it?” she shot back, every word a demand.
Was it to late to return to his silence-is-the-best-defense plan? The last thing he wanted was to get into this with her.
“It’s because of Jordie, isn’t it? What you said back in the village. That I’m just like him.”
God dammit. Why had he opened his stupid mouth? If he wanted someone to blame for things deteriorating, he could easily put all this on his own shoulders. He’d let his temper get the better off him and shot off his mouth. Now, the floodgates were open, and he wasn’t ready for the deluge.
“We’re wasting daylight,” he said instead of answering. “You want to see the crash site or not?”
“Fine.” She adjusted her pack, seeming to get a handle on her emotions a lot quicker than him. “But FYI, whatever happened with you and my brother, maybe you could try remembering that I’m not him.”
The words struck him like a blow to the face. Bren didn’t notice, brushing by him to scramble over a fence and head into the overgrown field beyond.
Things were way more complicated than her words made it seem… Or so he told himself.
…
After spending nearly an hour walking through fields that obviously hadn’t been tended for years, they came across a farmhouse and large barn. The buildings were sturdy and weathered, not looking too worse for wear, but had definitely been abandoned.
“This must be the Pruitt farm,” Bren said as they strode along the overgrown driveway. It was the first thing she’d said to him since they’d set off. “The man I spoke to said the wreckage had come down in the back forty, near the river.”
He nodded, a door creaking in the light breeze when they passed the barn. Beyond the structure, they went over another fence, back into knee-high grass. Lucky there weren’t any snakes on Ilari, otherwise he would have had a huge issue with the fact that he couldn’t see where he was putting his feet.
“The man also said there were a lot of CSS in the area,” she said as though they hadn’t spent the last few minutes walking in silence.
And great, this just kept getting better and better. Though he supposed she hadn’t told him about the CSS before now because she’d been worried it would give him another reason not to do this.
He started paying more attention as they got to the far side of the field where the fence ran along a small rise. At the top, the crashed ship came into view, along with the river beyond it, and half a dozen CS soldiers hanging around the vicinity. They didn’t seem to be doing anything other than guarding what was left of the jet.
They hunkered down in the grass behind the fence, and Bren took out a scope.
“Well, on the bright side, there are less soldiers than I expected.”
“Still more than I’d like to be dealing with.” He ran a gaze over the area, calculating how far each soldier stood from the wreckage and what weapons they visibly carried that he could pick out at this distance. “Are you sure you need access to the jet’s computer data? There’s no other way to work out where Shen might have ejected?”
“Not with the same amount of accuracy, no.” She lowered the scope and looked over at him. “So, what’s the plan?”
Both his eyebrows hiked up before he could get a handle on his surprise. “You’re actually asking me that?”
Indignation flashed across her features. “You’re the one with the most ground experience, so of course it makes sense for me to utilize that knowledge. I have no idea what I did to make you think I’m so incompetent, but clearly I managed to get this far in my career without any major screw ups.”
Well, hell. One thing he could say about Theresa Brenner was that she didn’t pull any punches. Yet again, she’d called him on how things were.
“I don’t think you’re incompetent.” The response was automatic, but not even he fully believed it, so he had no idea why he thought she would.
“Really? Could have fooled me.” She returned her attention to the scope, effectively giving him the cold shoulder. “What’s your call?”
He surveyed the field again and flicked through a few plans in his mind.
“Our best option is to wait until nightfall and go in with the cover of darkness.”
“Sounds good.” She pushed back on her stomach for a few feet then got up so the crest of the hill would keep her covered. Adjusting her pack, she stared at him expectantly. “Are you coming?”
“Where?” Had he lost a few brain cells in the past days? Surely, he usually operated smarter than this.
“Back to the farmhouse. There are still a few hours of daylight left, and I don’t plan on spending them sitting around in an open field where the CSS can stumble across us.”
“Right,” he muttered, repeating her backward slide before getting up to stay out of sight.
She didn’t say anything else to him, though her expression was edged in exasperation as she turned away and started marching back toward the farmhouse. And it wasn’t the fun, joke-between-friends kind of exasperation. It was the how-much-longer-do-I-have-to-put-up-with-this-idiot kind.
Her words were stuck on a repeating loop—first her remark about the fact that she wasn’t her brother, and secondly her accusation about him thinking she was incompetent. The two statements were like acid in his brain, washing away his preconceived notions of her with all the finesse of a fire, leaving nothing but scorched earth in its wake.
And it was like a film lifted from his vision.
He hadn’t realized it, but every time he’d looked at her, he’d seen Jordie, even though they didn’t look the same. Sure, there were some similarities. Jordie had blond hair as well, but he’d worn it clipped close to his skull and the blue of his eyes had been a bit muddier.
Still, he hadn’t been able to look at her without seeing her brother; it’d brought up feelings of guilt and anger he’d spent years working to forget.
Her words had been as effective as a blade cutting through all the bullshit, although he still couldn’t bring himself to trust her. Nothing would probably come of her impulsive decision, but there was a calculated risk with everything they did while behind enemy lines.
So, while he wasn’t ready to completely change his opinion of her—because there was no denying some things were in a person’s DNA—maybe he could give her a small break. Start seeing her as her own person, own soldier, instead of just being Jordie Brenner’s little sister.