By Break of Day (The Night Stalkers) (17 page)

She knew. One of the lines Joe always gave for not having found himself a girl was that he couldn’t afford betting on the races
and
a girl. He always concluded by saying that the horses were cheaper and generally more fun.

“Apparently quarter horses are the biggest category of races in the U.S., especially in the South and Midwest. If one wins a race, Joe said there’s something like a thirty percent chance it comes from the Roberts’ ranch or one of their studs. This dude’s way high-end, Sis. What did you do to him?”

“Uh, can I just say it wasn’t real nice?”

“Crap, Sis. You gotta fix this. I can see how it’s hurtin’ you. You gotta fix this.”

“Don’t know if I can, Rude.” But she lifted Justin’s duffel off Rudi’s shoulder and put it on her own.

“You gotta try, Kar.” Then he hugged her hard and headed off to keep the courtrooms of Brooklyn safe.

Kara stepped out into the light morning mist. It was damp and chilly. She turned back for a coat and the door closed in her face. Through the beveled glass she could see enough to know that Nonna had shut the door.

Then the dead bolt clicked into place.

Kara’s keys were still hanging on the hook in the foyer where they always hung—next to her coat on the other side of the locked door.

Justin took one look around his twentieth-floor room of the Marriott with a view out over the Brooklyn Bridge. If he sat in here, he’d go mad. So he went downstairs and bought shorts, a T-shirt, and some decent running shoes because he couldn’t wait for his duffel to show up.

He thought about going for a run in the city, but Brooklyn was so damn crowded he didn’t know where to begin. The deep Somali desert, Ramon Airbase in Israel, Tripoli—those he understood. New York was like a city gone mad. Vertical. So many people crowded in that he couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.

Finally he went to the hotel’s fitness center and hit one of the treadmill machines. It was mid-morning and he owned the place. Everyone else was off to their business meetings or whatever.

He started running fast. At one mile he goosed it and at two he increased the incline and goosed it again. Without a forty- or fifty-pound training pack he could run a half marathon before he felt it.

Some part of him acknowledged that he couldn’t do it at this pace, but he couldn’t make himself slow down. Didn’t matter that the sweat was burning his eyes; he hadn’t thought to grab a towel and he wasn’t going to stop.

So, he did something he almost never did, especially not in public. He pulled off his T-shirt, exposing his back, and used it to wipe at his face from time to time.

Justin was nine miles out at a dead run when he hit the wall. It was too much, so he cycled down, first to trot, then jog, then walk. Until finally the machine ground to a halt and he stood there with no more idea of what to do than when he’d started.

He turned around and jolted.

There on a chair behind him rested his duffel bag.

Beside it sat Kara Moretti with her knees pulled up to her chest, her hair down and mostly hiding her face. But he could feel those wide, dark eyes watching him.

His heart ached with the need to go to her, but he couldn’t do it. Not after what she’d said. He stepped off the treadmill and sat down on the trailing end, facing her.

They sat in silence a long time before she spoke.

“How was I supposed to know?”

Justin shrugged. He’d simply…known. He’d thought that was enough somehow, dolt that he was.

“You never said you loved me.”

He hadn’t. Didn’t make it any less true.

Again they lapsed into silence. Someone came in, looked at the two of them, then opted for the swimming pool next door. Wise choice.

“I hate that you’re mad at me.” Her voice broke. Kara’s voice never broke.

“C’mon, Kara. You’re not the one I’m mad at.”

“Then who?” It came out on a choke and a gulp. Her face remained mostly hidden by her hair.

“Duh! Who else is sitting in the room?”

She tipped her head to the side until one red-rimmed eye studied him in the clear. She’d been crying while sitting silently behind him, and the thought almost ruined him.

Then she shook her head, which totally blocked her face.

In frustration she grabbed at her hair and tossed it back over her shoulders.

He waited, feeling the chill of cooling sweat. The T-shirt clenched in his hand was clammy but he wasn’t about to fish another one out of the duffel; it was still too close to Kara.

“I don’t get it. Why are you mad at yourself?”

Justin scrubbed his hands through his hair, wishing he could reach inside and fix the mess there. “Pretty obvious.”

“Not to this girl.”

“C’mon, Moretti. Use that amazing, intuitive brain of yours.”

“My what?”

“The attack on Turkish OKK. Blowing up your ScanEagle to cover my retreat. Those kinds of tricks don’t come from training. They’re the reason you fly with the 5D—because you’re that damn good.”

“I am?”

Justin looked around the room for help, but it was just them and a few dozen fitness machines. “You are,” he finally answered. “Though that’s off to the side of the current conversation.”

“The one about you loving me and being angry at yourself for it?”

All he could do was nod. Why did Kara Moretti knock all of the words out of him? He had no clear answer to that one either.

“You’re angry because…” He could see her testing the idea. “You fell in love and you thought I had gone there with you.”

That was only part of it.

“Because…no.”

“What?” He needed her to explain, because he certainly couldn’t.

“Give me a break, Justin. These are your feelings. Why am I the one trying to explain them?”

He shrugged. “I’ve just beat myself up for nine miles and I have no idea. I’m hoping that you do. All I know is that I have this overwhelming gut full of anger. When I started, I thought it was at you. By the time I was done, I knew it was at me. I just don’t have a fucking clue why.”

“Wow! The cowboy swore. In front of a woman no less.”

Justin could feel the heat flaming his cheeks, and wiping them with a soggy T-shirt didn’t help. He went over to his duffel, dug out a fresh one, and pulled it on. He retreated back to the treadmill and sat down once more facing her. “Sorry.”

* * *

Kara was the one who was sorry. Sorry that he covered that beautiful chest of his. Sorry that he was so ashamed of the scars on his back. They made him more human, more believable…and much more complicated than anyone she’d ever slept with.

She had arrived at the fitness center early in his run.

When he hadn’t answered his hotel room door, she’d thought about where she’d go if she had a load of anger to work off. Geri’s Gelato came to mind first, but she hadn’t had a chance to introduce Justin to that particular indulgence yet. Second choice was a workout. Hotel fitness center, easy once she thought about it.

For over half an hour she’d watched his back and thought about how those scars had shaped the man, reshaped his life.

“If your Chinook hadn’t been destroyed and your crew killed, would you still be in the Army? Or back on your horse ranch?”

“Well, I think that’s another conversation off to the side.”

Kara shook her head. She didn’t think that it was, though she didn’t know why she thought that.

He shrugged in that way of his, signaling his easy acceptance.

There was another trademark of the man. He took life as it came to him, rather than fighting it every step of the way. She wondered what he’d look like when he was truly angry, and was actually a little relieved that she had missed that. It had certainly left an impression on Nonna though.

“I was near the end of my first tour with the 10th of the 10th—10th Combat Aviation Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division—when it blew. I was due to muster out halfway through my rehab. But I couldn’t.”

“You don’t make SOAR just because you’re stubborn as one of your mules.”

“We don’t have mules, but I can think of a few of our horses that make your point. No, I was a different kind of flier after the attack. Discovered that I was just as careful, more so, but all that naive crap about somehow being the one in control was stripped away. You ride a bronc and think you’re the one in control, the next thing you know he’s putting you into the fence. Same with a Chinook. I learned to work
with
the helo, not merely be some urban cowboy dude flying a machine.”

Kara wished she knew how it all tied together, but couldn’t find the pieces. There were so many of them.

Justin waited with all the patience in the world. He’d never yelled at her, not even when she slammed his face into the counter. Instead, he’d gathered her up in his powerful arms and sat her down.

“I think your patience is one of your problems.”

His smile quirked, but it was a sad one.

“Seriously, if you’d shouted at me, you might have gotten some message through my thick skull.”

“What message should I have shouted?”

“That you’re crazy in love with me and that I’m going to have to figure out how to deal with that.”

Justin sighed. “No. This is my problem to deal with.”

“Cowboy!” she shouted at him and clambered to her feet.

He rose to face her.

She strode up and poked him in the center of his chest. “I’m the object of you being crazy in love with someone. I think that makes me pretty involved.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He snapped her a salute that she instinctively returned. “What are you planning to do about it, ma’am?”

There was a laugh. “Hell if I know, Cowboy.”

* * *

Justin didn’t know if he was pleased or disappointed that Kara didn’t try to join him in the shower. It was better that she didn’t, but he didn’t want her any less for all of what was going on.

She had remained exactly where he’d left her, sitting by the twentieth-floor hotel window staring out at the Brooklyn Bridge and the city beyond.

“What do you see?”

She startled and turned toward him, then her smile came to life. “I see something very delectable.”

He should have taken fresh clothes into the bathroom with him. When he began to dress, she offered a pout, but turned back to the window before he even shed the towel from around his waist.

“I was just thinking about you being here with me rather than going to see your family. With how close you are, that means something. Means a lot.”

“Why are you more impressed that I’m not seeing my family to be with you, than that I’m here to be with you?”

“Family matters.”

“And you don’t?”

“Cut that out, Justin. You can’t keep making me face things I don’t want to. I’ll go crazy.”

“You mean crazier?”

It earned him the scowl he’d been hoping for. Her emotions were right on the surface, and he loved watching them cross over her features.

He picked up the phone. “Have you eaten?”

“You’re not ordering room service.”

“Why? Their menu looks good.”

“So not! You’re in Brooklyn, the land of amazing food. Come on, we’ll get a bagel and coffee.”

“I thought you were Italian.”

“I’m from Brooklyn. Sue me.”

They didn’t hold hands, but he liked how close she stayed as they walked to what she claimed was the best bagel shop this side, or any other, of some place called Ratner’s.

She relaxed more and more throughout the morning as she toured him about the city, came more to life as time passed. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

“This is your idea of outdoors?”

“Yeah. What of it?” Kara watched Justin as he surveyed the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He’d complained of feeling claustrophobic in the city. Weird thing was they’d been standing on the Brooklyn Heights promenade at that moment, up on the cliff overlooking the East River with Manhattan as a backdrop—one of the best vistas in all of New York.

The Botanic Garden was fifty acres of woods, a tropical hothouse, and a wide selection of planned gardens. There were several places where you couldn’t see the surrounding city buildings at all. At the moment they were on a path deep in the bluebell woods. Shade trees of oak, birch, and beech shadowed over an acre of bluebell flowers in riotous bloom. A light vagrant breeze kept them stirred into constant motion.

“Sorry. Other than a couple of camping cabins, we don’t have much past the barn on ten thousand acres. And our ranch backs onto the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area. You can ride back into the hill-and-canyon country for a couple days and not see a soul. I’m in mind of a hundred acres or so that are so thick with bluebonnets in the spring that the bumblebees are stumble-drunk on the nectar and can barely fly.”

Right. She’d forgotten what Rudi had said about Justin’s family being wealthy. It was hard to remember when it was just him sitting there in the shade of his fool cowboy hat.

“How is it you seem so normal?”

“Man, do I have you hornswoggled. You should ask Ma about that when you see her tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Kara stumbled to a halt on the path.

“Sure, she’s coming to New York.”

“Your mother?” She reached for a park bench.

“Yes.”

“Coming to New York?” She sat.

“Yep,” Justin agreed far too amiably and settled beside her, stretching out his long legs as if there wasn’t a thing the matter in the world.

“Tomorrow?” Kara managed to gasp out. The field of bright bluebells now waved back and forth like an ocean until she felt vaguely seasick.

“Seems I might have already said something about that.”

Kara glared up at him. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Can’t see why I shouldn’t. I was on the phone to her when you put my face into the kitchen counter.”

“You were? Sorry ’bout that. I seem to recall that I was upset.”

“I may have noticed that myself. You seem less upset now.”

“Other than your mother coming.”

“Other than that.”

Kara let out a scream of frustration that sent the pigeons that had been sidling up to beg for crumbs running for cover. They scowled back at her as they went. And with their deep pigeon brains running at full speed, it was barely five seconds before they were turning back to beg for more crumbs despite her hands being empty.

Justin reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out one of the bagels he had stowed there. He unwrapped it and tossed some bits of bread.

“No! Don’t!”

“What? You are filled with a whole lot of commands, Captain Moretti.”

She simply waved her hand to indicate the walkway in front of them. Where there had been four pigeons a moment before, there were now forty. More were flapping in from other less-promising tourists.

Justin kept tossing out bits and crumbles until the birds’ cooing was so loud she couldn’t even think.

“Your mother?” was all she could manage.

“Flying in tomorrow. I’d like you to meet her, if you’re over hating me.” His easy smile softened any protest she might have construed from his words. “If you still despise me or feel yourself prone to making jokes about our hats, I’ll leave it up to you to reconsider.”

“I don’t hate you. I just—”

“Don’t know what to do with me. I know. I think we have trampled that ground sufficiently for the time being.”

“Is she flying here to…meet me?”

“How much would it scare you if I said yes?”

She elbowed him sharply in the ribs in answer, causing him to bobble his next set of bread crumbs all over his sneakers. The pigeons descended, pecking for every crumb that might have slipped between shoelaces.

“Hey, guys! Cut that out. It tickles and these are brand-new.”

Kara was…dating, she could handle “dating” for a descriptor…a cowboy who talked to pigeons.

“Ma is by pure coincidence flying in to speak at the next New York Quarter Horse Association meeting. She’s coming out a day early to see me and, if it doesn’t make your brain explode or some equally New York Italian event, would very much like to meet you.”

“Did you tell her that…” Kara couldn’t say it.

“That I love you? Dang!” He tipped his hat back on his head and looked winded. “Don’t think I’ve said that part before. Whoo-ee but that changes a man’s view of the world, saying it aloud. I didn’t have to say it in so many words as it was pretty obvious. Still, takes a man’s breath clean away. Sorry it just sorta slid out into public like that, but you heard it first from me.”

“Actually”—Kara covered her face—“I heard it from Nonna first.”

Justin nodded soberly as he tossed the last of his bagel out to the eager flock, now a veritable sea at their feet. “She’s a smart woman. I like her a lot.”

Kara loved her. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to kill her grandmother for stirring up everything this morning. It was a real problem; Nonna was still sharp as all hell, but now that she’d retired from the shop she’d founded, she had far too much time to meddle.

* * *

Kara and Justin waited on the edge of the parking apron in a corner of the Teterboro Airport—a forty-five-minute taxi ride from Brooklyn. Small planes zipped down the runway every sixty seconds or so. Inbound and outbound, its two runways felt far busier and more alive than LaGuardia or JFK, though both had three times the traffic, all of it monstrous jets.

Kara liked this airport; it felt more personal that all the glass and steel of the big terminals. She and Justin had taken a taxi, walked through a gate, and were standing among the parked and tied-down planes waiting for…oh God, Justin’s mom.

Every third or fourth takeoff was a little business jet similar to the one rolling to a stop on the apron in front of her.

The neat Citation M2 jet looked as if it had been branded with a giant hot iron, “RQR.” Below that were the words “Roberts Quarter Horse Ranch.”

Kara did her best to not cower before the tall, blond woman who climbed off the plane—she had apparently piloted from Texas to New York on her own.

Kara didn’t know what she’d expected, but “mothers” in her neighborhood all came in variations on her own. Even the Jews and the Greeks tended toward moderate statures, raised voices, and waistlines that showed visible signs of a passion for food.

Annie Roberts was none of those, which made her even more surprising. She was only a few inches shy of Justin’s towering height. Light skinned and slender. The same wheat-blond hair that Kara had so come to appreciate on Justin slid in a wide, wavy cascade over the woman’s shoulders. The blouse and slacks weren’t “country”—Kara recognized high-end designer elegant when she saw it. And the toes of her cowboy boots were stitched works of art that Kara deeply craved even though she’d never been much of a shoe person.

“Kara, this Annie Roberts. Ma, this is Captain Kara Moretti. She’s the Air Mission Command for my company.”

“Which means what in English?” Her accent was even thicker than Justin’s, but it fit her and her lighter voice well.

“It means,” Kara answered for him, “that when he’s in the air, he has to do what I say.”

“And on the ground?” Annie asked in a way that had Kara grinning despite her nerves.

“That’s still a matter of some negotiation, Ms. Roberts.”

Annie’s laugh was as bright and sunny as her son’s as she turned and flicked a finger against Justin’s hat brim. “Y’all are in the city now, Son.”

Kara cheered and sent a told-you-so smirk to Justin.

“Just trying to keep the natives in line, Ma.” He tugged the brim back into place to declare his staunch support for his state.

“Yeah, right.” Kara pumped a fist in victory.

“I’m not the only one who can’t hide being country.” He kicked the toe of his mother’s cowboy boot with the toe of his own. Their hug was far less effusive than the typical hug in the Moretti household, but no less sincere for that.

“So.” Justin’s mother turned to face Kara.

Kara felt suddenly small and dowdy, wearing her favorite worn jeans close beside a gazillion-dollar private jet in front of these two amazing specimens of human genetics.

“Justie has never been one to trip and fall over his tongue about a woman before.”

“I believe that may have been my doing.”

Annie Roberts did that same silent question-with-her-eyebrows thing that Justin did.

“I was planting his face into a kitchen counter when last he spoke to you.” She barely resisted adding a “ma’am.” Justin’s mom was wholly daunting.

Again the sparkling laugh. “Well, if you can keep Justie in line, you’re a better woman than I am, Captain Moretti.”

“Kara.”

“Annie.”

Maybe Kara wouldn’t feel
too
self-conscious about how much she liked this woman’s son.

Liked
sounded as if she was fooling herself, but she wasn’t going to think about that at the moment.

* * *

Justin wondered how he’d eaten quite so much. The big bowl of minestrone soup would have been enough. But the homemade pizza with all fresh toppings had been stunningly good. And somewhere along the way he’d consumed at least two sides of spaghetti with Nonna’s red sauce that she only made for special guests.

“You really should consider my offer, Joe.” His mom and Kara’s middle brother had been talking horses for much of the meal. “I’m glad to fly you down to look over the operation.”

Justin had long since given up any attempt to control the dinner conversation. The Morettis had shifted from being cautious of Annie Roberts to full embrace, faster than a quarter horse could shift his gait. The Morettis also had a talent for all talking simultaneously that left his head spinning.

“I’ve never worked with horses, Ms. Roberts.” Of them all, only Joe had retained the honorific. “Only ever bet on them.”

“I know plenty of racers and ranchers who know far less about horses than you do. My older boy, Rafe, could help you fill that gap of experience right quick.”

“Ma”—Justin rested his hand on hers—“his family and his job are here.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. Justin was always the thoughtful one. Most of us Robertses simply leap into the middle of the ring without asking no mind or pardon. Still, Joe, you should think about it. My daughter has leave next month…” She trailed off suggestively.

“If she looks anything like you, Annie”—Kara leaned excitedly into the conversation—“he’s toast.”

Justin gave up and joined the fray. “Spitting image. Rides like a pro too. We all thought she’d go pro rodeo before the Air Force tripped her up by offering a steed she couldn’t turn down. She captains an AC-130 Spooky gunship like you can’t imagine.”

“Total toast!” Kara cheered.

* * *

Justin’s look across the table stopped Kara cold. If a younger version of Annie Roberts would spell doom for her brother Joe, what did that mean about Justin?

Last night he’d come home with her for dinner, but slept at the hotel. What was even more irritating was that it had gained him respect and support from her own family. She’d complained to Nonna that it felt like everyone was ganging up on her.

Nonna had laughed in that way of hers that always made things better. “Oh,
mia bambina.
They only try to wish the very best for you. They love you with all their hearts; that is how we Morettis are made.”

At least it made her feel better until she was well clear of Nonna’s influence and sleeping alone in her own bed. Then it still felt like they were all conspiring against her.

And now the way Justin was looking at her across the table told her that Joe Moretti wasn’t the only one who was toast here.

Was that the stage that came between dating…and that other word?

Kara Moretti.

Totally unable to look away from the handsome, blond cowboy with the dazzling blue eyes he’d inherited from the woman close beside him.

Yep. Toast seemed to cover the bases just fine.

Crap!

* * *

“It was so wonderful to meet you, Kara.” They’d taken Annie back out to the airport. It was still predawn, but her first meeting was for breakfast in Syracuse, a four-hour drive most of the way across the state or just a quick half-hour flight in the sporty, little family jet.

Annie was as fresh and lively at six in the morning as she’d been stepping off the plane after a three-hour hop north from Texas. She had a terrifying energy that Kara was rather glad Justin lacked. He was more steady, whereas his mom was part steamroller—beautiful and charming, but at least fifty percent steamroller.

It was clear by watching them prepare the plane for flight that he was also very familiar with the little jet.

Kara had ducked her head inside while they were preflighting the exterior. Clearly this was Annie’s traveling office, with a wide variety of personal and very feminine touches that Kara would never have thought of. But seeing them, she wished she was the sort of person who would have the means and reason to do so. It wasn’t avarice or greed; it was the perfect juxtaposition of woman and businesswoman that she appreciated. She was also amused to spot a fancy tooled-leather western saddle—a real showpiece—hanging on a support clearly made for the purpose and a white straw hat that matched Justin’s sitting on the empty copilot’s seat.

Once the plane was all ready, Annie led her aside, leaving Justin standing by the steps.

“I really can’t believe he didn’t sleep with you last night.” If Annie Roberts was anything, it was plainspoken. Straight to the point.

Justin and his mother had both stayed at the hotel.

“If you want my advice, don’t let him get away with that again. He learned his manners from his father—bless the man. I love him to death, but if it had been left up to him, we’d still be courting. Robertses are not the fastest men in the herd.”