Stars & Stripes

He was dusty and growing more and more tanned by the minute, and he wore that hat like he’d been made for it. It was enough to hold Zane’s attention as Jamie, Mark, and Annie sat around him, unpacking their lunches.



“Hey, Z. He seems like a good guy,” Jamie said.



Zane chuckled and turned to look at his cousin. “He is. But you haven’t even talked to him; how would you know?”



Jamie shrugged, glancing at Ty as if he was truly considering the question.



“What do you know about your partner, Z?” Mark asked after a few moments of silent shuffling with their coolers.



Something about that question made the hair on the back of Zane’s neck rise. “Excuse me?”



Mark glanced over his shoulder at Ty and the others, then leaned closer. “What do you know about him?” he asked softly. “Like, do you know anything about his past?”



Zane was tempted to tell Mark how inappropriate that question was, especially when asked in front of others. But it was so odd for Mark to bring up the issue at all that Zane was curious to find out what he was getting at. “We don’t talk a lot about the past,” he admitted. “Why?”



“I knew him when he was still in service.” Mark frowned. “Or, I knew about him. He was a big deal where I was. Lots of respect, lots of fear.”



Zane didn’t doubt that, not one bit. That was true even now. People respected Ty for his abilities, and feared him because of his attitude. Zane knew he was just a big marshmallow under all the gruff sarcasm and badassery, but no one else did.



“I know he was awarded the Bronze Star and a few Purple Hearts,” Zane said with a hint of pride.



Mark nodded. “He was an excellent Marine, no doubt about that. But there was a lot of talk too. He seems like a nice guy, so the rumors might have been just that, but . . . stories I heard about him and his team make me worry a little, is all.”



“Mark, what the hell are you talking about?” Annie asked, her voice hushed.



Mark cleared his throat and shook his head. “Guess it’s not the best time to discuss it.”



“Oh, it’s too late for that,” Zane snapped. He could feel an accusation coming, and he was already growing defensive about it.



“It’s just . . . out here with him and everyone armed like we are, I realized it was making me a little nervous,” Mark admitted.



“What is?”



“Him.”



“What? Why?”



“Because . . . word was, around the Corps, that your boy was crazy as hell.”



Zane couldn’t help it when the laugh popped out, and he had to swallow hard against more. “Mark, that’s not news to me.”



Mark didn’t crack a smile, though. “Like, Full Metal Jacket crazy. People said he was unbalanced, he was a hard-ass. And he was dangerous.”



Zane nodded. None of that was news to him or to anyone who worked with Ty.



“And there at the end, folks were afraid to work with him. They said he’d throw you to the wolves to save his own skin.”



“Bullshit,” Zane said.



Mark raised both hands to fend off Zane’s anger. “Hey, I’m just the messenger.”



“It’s bullshit. Ty took a bullet for his last partner.”



“Okay,” Mark said with a nod.



Zane gritted his teeth. It wasn’t the first time someone had warned Zane that Ty might turn on him to save his own skin. Serena Scott had said the same thing when they’d worked their first case together in New York City. Despite being used as a paintball shield once during a training mission, Zane saw nothing like that in Ty’s personality. If anything, he was loyal to a fault, and willing to risk himself for a stranger’s safety. Why the hell did people keep telling him to watch his back around his partner?



“He tell you why he left the Corps?” Mark asked.



Zane’s breath caught, and he found himself looking over Mark’s shoulder at Ty to see if he was paying attention to them. He wasn’t. He was eating his sandwich and smiling as Joe and Cody talked with him.



Zane shook his head. “No, he never told me. Do you know why?”



Mark glanced around again and slid closer to Zane, leaning in and lowering his voice. “We had our guesses. ’Round about when I was sent to Lejeune, Grady and his Recon boys were there, too. At that time, Marine Recon wasn’t considered Special Ops. They wanted all Marines to be elite, you see? So they didn’t class any of them as different. But Recon was missing out on the special assignments.”



They were all leaning in, giving their little group a conspiratorial look. Zane was hyper-aware of the others, praying Ty wouldn’t take notice of them. He hated that he was listening to gossip about Ty’s past, but he just couldn’t seem to pass up the opportunity to learn something without having to ask Ty again.



Mark paused to take a drink as Zane’s stomach churned with nerves.



“So around then, the Corps put Recon into the Special Ops ring. A few months after I got there, Grady’s group came home from a float. Two of them were real beat up. I mean beat all to hell. Grady was one of them.”



Zane swallowed hard. This must have been right after Ty and Nick O’Flaherty had been captured and tortured. He felt ill as he imagined the shape the two of them must have been in when they’d returned home.



“The story was they’d got into some sort of brawl in Spain and spent time in jail, but bar brawls don’t cause the damage I saw, and neither does a Spanish prison. There were rumors they’d actually been taken prisoner on a black ops mission and escaped. Now that, I believed. I remember running into Grady in the mess hall one night after he got back. He was ahead of me in line. He had this . . . vacant look, like he was lost in his own head. Wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, just looked right through them. Marines call it the thousand-yard stare. I remember it being pretty eerie to look at him. Lot of guys avoided him and his buddies.”



“Is that why Ty was discharged?” Jamie asked, frowning. “Battle trauma?”



Mark shook his head. “He and his buddy both recovered pretty fast. But one of the other men in Grady’s secondary group, he went . . . he was stark raving mad. I mean real, certifiable crazy.”



Zane raised an eyebrow at that, but it didn’t surprise him. From what he knew of Ty, all Recon boys were certifiable to varying degrees. “That’s . . . kind of sad. But what does that have to do with Ty?”



Mark shook his head. “This guy started causing problems, on base and off. Word was a couple of them caught him trying to rape some girl in town, stopped him, and dragged him back to the brig before he could. Guys that saw him said he was beaten to a damn pulp. Rumor was Ty had done it.”



“Jesus,” Annie said. “I’m sorry, but what does that have to do with him being dangerous? He caught someone trying to rape a girl and beat him up. Good for him.”



“I know. But the Brass didn’t want it getting around that Recon assignments were literally driving Marines nuts, so they had to sweep it under the rug. Word around the camp was they called Grady and this other guy—Sanchez, I think?—in for a talk. A week later, twelve of them went out on a training mission. Eleven came back.”



For some reason, the implication went right over Zane’s head at first. But when he reviewed what Mark said, he couldn’t keep from frowning. Was he actually accusing Ty and his Recon group of murder?



“They said he jumped off a cliff,” Mark said with a snort. “I was transferred shortly after that, so I never heard what happened. But Ty said the Marines didn’t want him anymore. I have to wonder if that was why.”



“What’s your point, Mark?” Zane asked. The upset was roiling in his gut again, but he wasn’t sure why he was angry. Perhaps it was because he couldn’t say with conviction that Ty would never do that. In fact, Zane knew that if Ty perceived someone as a threat to him or something he loved, he’d definitely push that person off a cliff.



“My point is . . . he might have violent tendencies. And he follows orders above all else. You should know, and I think you should be careful,” Mark said, looking as if he hated the fact that he was saying it. “You know. Wary of his . . . mental state.”



“That’s ridiculous,” Annie grumbled. She went back to her sandwich. “People at Lejeune also said Blackbeard haunted the rescue helicopter.”



Mark shrugged. “I just . . . I wouldn’t want Z getting hurt.” He glanced over his shoulder to look at Ty one last time.



It hit Zane hard. Mark was unnerved by Ty—a fellow Marine—and he was concerned for Zane’s safety. Ty had saved Zane’s life many times over, in many different ways, and yet Mark was concerned for Zane’s safety. The harsh dichotomy almost made Zane sick. It wasn’t fair that people looked at Ty like that, not after all he’d been through and all he’d sacrificed.



“All right,” he managed to get out, though the words tried to stick in his throat. “Consider me warned.”



Mark nodded, then took another long drink of his water. All three of them sat watching Zane.



“I gotta admit, I was expecting more of a reaction,” Mark said.



Zane stared at him, unmoving even when Mark shifted uncomfortably. Finally, he said, “I don’t know. I know what Ty’s capable of, and I know he battles a few demons. Hell, we’ve even exchanged a few blows in the past. But I also know he loves me and I love him, and I think he’d die before he'd hurt me. So I guess I’ll take my chances.”



“Fair enough,” Mark said.



“We’ve missed you, Z,” Jamie said instead of commenting on it. “We’re glad you’re here. And most of us are glad to meet Ty, too.”



Zane considered him for a long moment. “I need to stay in touch better.”



Jamie grinned. “Absolutely. Even if your boyfriend is nuttier than squirrel shit.” Then he looked across the grass to where the other guys were sprawled. “So, you love him?”



Zane’s lips quirked. “Yes. I love him.”



“Then he’s a good guy,” Jamie said with a glance at Mark. “I can’t see you loving someone who’s not a good person.”



Zane almost choked on his sandwich. He turned an incredulous glance on his cousin.



“Well?” Jamie said, gesturing toward Ty and the others. Mark rolled his eyes and started massaging the bridge of his nose.



“He’s also really hot,” Annie added.



“Hey,” Mark grumbled.



“Hot is hot, baby.”



Zane laughed, and the uncertainty that had settled on his shoulders began to dissipate as his gaze shifted to Ty. His partner was leaning against a rock, eating and talking with the men around him. Cody and Joe had immediately taken a liking to Ty, and Ty to them. Zane smiled.



Annie whistled and Jamie broke out in a laugh. “He’s that good, huh?”



“You have no idea.”



“Thank God for small favors.”



The conversation turned to the past, Zane reminiscing about their childhood adventures with his sister and cousin. Soon Harrison was moving them back toward the horses.



Zane met Ty at his horse. “Learn anything?”



“Cody and Marissa are having a thing. What were y’all talking about over there?”



Zane licked his lips and shrugged. “Mark thinks you’re crazy and dangerous.”



“Oh,” Ty said evenly, though his eyes gleamed with amusement. “He tell you about the time we killed one of our teammates by shoving him off a cliff?”



Zane blinked and nodded.



Ty laughed as he slid his sunglasses back on. “Yeah, good times.” He put one foot in the stirrup. The horse took a step, causing him to hop with it to keep from falling down. Then it took another, playing with him. “Hold on now, Elmer,” Ty growled as he pulled himself into the saddle.



Zane put a hand on Ty’s thigh and peered up at him. “Is it true?”



Ty stared at him for a moment, his expression hidden behind his sunglasses and the shade of his hat. He finally gave a curt nod. “He fell off a cliff, that’s for sure. But the only thing that pushed him was the ghost of Blackbeard.”



Zane shook his head, smiling. “I love you. Even if you are a crazy, cold-blooded murderer of your coworkers.”



Ty grinned and reached down to run his fingers through Zane’s hair. As soon as he let go of the reins, the horse danced sideways, taking Ty with him. Zane laughed as Ty cursed the horse and his lineage, trying to regain control.



He was still laughing as he headed for his own mount, investigating the feelings of the last half hour. Even if what Mark had said about Ty was true, Zane didn’t care. That in itself was kind of scary.



“Come on, Elmer. Let’s go find a glue factory,” Ty said to his horse, who tossed its head and snorted as if in argument. “Uh-huh, you know why? Opposable thumbs, bitch!”



“Man’s crazy,” Zane’s uncle said to Harrison.



Zane grinned.



Harrison nodded and they watched Ty argue with the horse. “Seems to work for him.”



“That’s why I’m up here, and you’re the one wearing the saddle,” Ty told his horse as they headed off.



When they reached the pump house, Ty dismounted with a grateful groan, then cursed the animal up and down. The guys surrounding him cackled as they swung down with no problems.



Zane was still chuckling as he joined Ty, though they were both moving stiffly. Zane put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. Ty was still getting used to being able to do it without fear of being seen.