Hard as It Gets (13 page)

And then the dance started. The puppy rounded one of the tables with its prize clutched tight between its teeth. Jess chased her to the right, and the puppy dashed left. Then Jess veered to the left, and the puppy ran right. “C’mere, you little thief!”

Becca snorted. “I should help her.” They stepped out from their hiding place and Jess glared. “I’m sorry,” Becca said, humor coloring her voice. “I’ll help.”

Jess waved her away. “No, no. I’ll get it. It’s fine.”

“Come here, puppy,” Becca called and snapped her fingers. “Come here, girl.”

Jess hiked herself up on the table, scooted her butt across, and dropped down on the other side, surprising the dog by changing the rules of the game. The puppy growled and took off like a cartoon, her legs taking a minute to find purchase before she shot around the other table. “You little fucker, c’mere!”

Rixey stood with his arms crossed and watched the circus unfold. Much as she tried, Becca couldn’t stop laughing. This was even better than he’d hoped for.

Jess got in a swipe at the dog’s tail and the shepherd barked around the scrap of fabric in her mouth.

Jeremy stepped out of the tattoo room wearing his mask and gloves. “What in the holy hell is going on out here?” The dog shot toward him and Jeremy crouched and caught her in a body hold. “Uh, hello.” He looked up. “We have a dog now?”

Becca smiled. “She’s mine.”

Jess stepped forward. “Um, Jeremy.”

Wagging her tail, Sadie-or-Georgia deposited its prize on Jeremy’s knee. He set the dog down and looped his gloved finger under a string. Holding it up, he pulled his mask off and arched a brow at Jess.

It was a thong.

Jess dove for it.

Jeremy rose in a flash and held it above his head. Short as Jessica was, she didn’t have a prayer.

“Jeremy Rixey, I will kill you.”

He hugged her tight against his chest and cocked his gaze up toward the panties. There was writing.
If you can read this, it’s your lucky day
. He barked out a laugh.

Becca grinned, her expression halfway between sympathy for Jess and hysterics. Nick should’ve known that between Jeremy and Jessica, letting the dog in here would lead to some sort of slapstick antics.

“I have to ask why you have panties here and how the hell the mutt got ’em.”

Jess stomped her knee-high black boot. “Just give them to me.”

Jeremy reached up with his other hand and held the thong so it hung straight, all except for one loose string. “Why are they—?” His eyebrows flew up under his long hair. “Are these
ripped
?”

The phone rang, the ringer echoing between the office and the front desk.

Jess braced her hands on her hips and tapped her toe. “Give. Them.”

“Not until you tell me why they’re—”

“Because, unlike
you,
I had sex last night and the guy ripped my thong off. Are you satisfied?”

Jeremy’s expression froze.

“Probably not as well as you are,” Becca said. Despite her bright red cheeks, she met all three sets of eyes that whipped her way. Damn, she wore that mixture of embarrassment and daring so well it shot right to Rixey’s cock.

Jeremy burst out laughing, and even Jess gave her a begrudging chuckle right before she punched Jer in the stomach. He grunted and handed over her panties. With a flip of red and black pigtails, she marched toward the front desk.

Through it all, Rixey couldn’t stop watching Becca. The way she laughed and smiled, the ease with which she teased and joked with Jeremy. Rixey remembered back to when she’d first walked through Hard Ink’s front door. He’d thought her sweet and innocent. The girl next door. And maybe a part of her was those things. But she was also the woman who’d come at him with a knife, who’d resisted a significantly bigger man attempting to abduct her, who’d tried her hand at boxing without any self-consciousness. The woman who’d kissed him. The first woman he’d kissed in over a year. And the woman who made him want so much more.

Too bad he didn’t deserve any of it, though that didn’t stop him from wanting her comforting touch, her warm body, her light chasing away his dark. Selfish bastard.

“Hey, Nicholas,” Jess called, knowing he disliked his full name. “Miguel’s on the phone.”

Becca turned to him with a grin. “Nicholas?”

He arched a brow and made for the office. “It’s Nick. Or Rixey. Or ‘Hey you.’ ”

“Or asshole,” Jeremy offered, stripping off his now dirty gloves and returning to his client.

“Preferable to Nicholas,” Rixey said over his shoulder. As he turned into the office and lifted the receiver, he wondered why the hell Miguel was calling him on the landline. “Hey, Miguel.”

“Hi, Nick. Wanted to let you know I got held up with an issue with one of my clients. I’m still coming over, it’ll just be a while.”

“That’s fine, but why are you—”

“Calling on the landline? Because I didn’t want to delay getting you some information before I can get over there and fill in the details. And this is more secure.”

If someone was so inclined, it was much easier to pick up a conversation from a cell phone. The fact that Miguel was taking precautions against that meant he was worried. Rixey pushed the office door closed. “Okay. What’s going on?”

“I called my guy at BPD to report the break-in and find out who’d covered the scene the day before. Report hadn’t been filed yet. He couldn’t even readily put his hands on who the lead investigator was. And none of the evidence was in the database. So I asked about the missing persons investigation on Charlie Merritt—”

“Let me guess. They’re not taking it seriously.” Rixey sank into the desk chair.

“No. That one hadn’t been filed either.”

Rixey sat forward, suspicion prickling over his skin. “Are you shitting me?”

Miguel heaved a breath that made its way down the line. “I wish I were. I don’t want to speculate about what this means before checking out a few more things. Speaking of which, do you know if Becca called nine-one-one during any of this?”

“Twice that I know of. When she found the break-in at her brother’s and last night when she realized there was an intruder in her house. Why?”

“I want to look into something. I found her home number online, but do you have her cell, too?”

“Yeah. Hold on.” Rixey fished through the recent dials on his cell and recited the number.

“Listen, just hold tight. I’ll help you work this if that’s what it comes to.”

“Thanks, Miguel. See you when you get here.” Nick replaced the receiver and sank heavily against the backrest.

This snafu was spinning out of control. One missing person, three break-ins, a kidnapping, and, at best, noncooperative police? All of which might also have something to do with Frank Merritt? Way more than he could handle on his own, even with Miguel’s help.

Rixey knew what he had to do.

But it was gonna suck ass to make the ask. At this point, his former Special Forces teammates owed him a whole lotta nothing. It was possible they wouldn’t even listen. But if they did, it was shit to call needing a favor after falling out of touch. He was going to have to own that, though, and choke down whatever grief they wanted to give him.

And, damn it all to hell, if they agreed to help, they might very well have to do this outside the technical confines of the law.

That was a fucking lot to ask from anyone.

But if Frank Merritt
was
at the bottom of this mess, he and his men might have a shot at not only protecting Charlie and Becca but also restoring the honor of everyone on the team. And Rixey would give just about anything to make that happen.

He just hoped he wasn’t alone.

Chapter 12

T
he first one Rixey had to talk to was Shane McCallan, not just because they’d been close but also because Shane had made so many attempts to reach out. The intelligence specialist could curse you out in more languages than you’d ever heard of and had medic training to boot. He and Nick had served together in the Army Special Forces for six years, much of that time in Afghanistan. Until the day their A-Team’s convoy was ambushed under highly suspicious circumstances and they were all blamed for the deaths of seven men in a cover-up of mind-boggling proportions.

Now Shane worked for a defense contractor in Northern Virginia. He had landed a lot more squarely on his feet than Rixey, and Nick was truly glad that his onetime best friend seemed to be doing a helluva lot more than getting by.

Nick placed the call.

Each ring reverberated against his innards, making him shift in his office chair. These conversations were likely to be as comfortable as an eyeful of sand, which should have the upside at least of distracting him from the fact that Becca had decided to soak in a hot bath down the hall—

Someone picked up. Then there was a long pause that made Rixey press the phone more firmly to his ear. “Nick,” Shane finally said. “Long time.” There was nothing welcoming in the man’s voice. His words were clipped so tight they even hid his usual hint of a southern drawl.

Rixey expected nothing less. “Shane. I know. And I’m sorry for that—”

“Save it.”

Shit. Rixey blew out a breath. “I fucked up.”

“You calling to walk down memory lane?”

In for a penny . . . “No. I got a situation.”

Shane’s humorless laugh was like a fist to the gut. “You calling me for a favor, Nick Rixey?”

No sense beating around the bush, not when the damn thing was on fire and throwing off sparks all over the place. “Yeah, I am.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Pretty much. Will you at least hear me out?”

“You’re seriously asking
me
that question?” Rixey had to pull the cell away from his ear. “After months of refusing to answer a single one of my phone calls or shoot back an email? Hell, a message saying ‘Fuck you very much’ would’ve been better than the friggin’ silent treatment.”

“You’re right.”

“Damn straight I am.”

Shane was entitled to every bit of his anger, but Nick didn’t have time for the kind of venting his friend would require before they could ever have a chance to be squared away. Time to cut to the chase. “My situation has something to do with Merritt’s extracurricular activities.” At least that was the conclusion his brain kept coming back to when he tried to make sense of what Charlie’d told Becca. And now with Becca’s police reports conveniently disappearing from record? Man, that took him right back to the cover-ups after the ambush.

An arctic blast made its way down the line. “I’m listening. For now.”

It was enough of an opening. The rest of the story should blow it wide. “Fair enough. Somehow that shit spilled stateside and landed on Merritt’s kids. Son’s missing. Daughter came to me for help and was nearly kidnapped today. Both their houses have been tossed. Someone’s looking for something.”

“And I should care about the old man’s kids why?”

Rixey thought about this for a moment, shoving down the knee-jerk responses and really chewing on what he thought could possibly be at stake. Finally, he said, “Because my gut’s telling me what our bad guys are looking for is somehow connected to what happened to us. And there just might be an opportunity here to get our hands on some intel that would allow us to prove our innocence, to prove that we were railroaded right out of the damn Army. I’m talking about a chance to reclaim our honor. For the five of us—
and
for the six who never made it off the road that day.” He never counted Merritt among the losses, not when he’d caused them. Was the same reason the tat on his arm only commemorated six soldiers.

“Shit,” Shane said, the southern lilt returning to his words. “Just how far out on a limb are you with that bit of speculation?”

“Possibly pretty far. Maybe all the way.” But Rixey had heard the consideration in his friend’s voice. “But maybe closer than I think, too.”

“Your gut’s a fucking burr on my balls.”

The corner of Rixey’s mouth twitched.
Come on, Shane
.

“When do you want me?”

On Becca’s behalf, relief had Nick easing against the chair’s backrest to let his head fall back. He stared at the ceiling. “As soon as you can get here. Tonight.”

“Course you do. Fucker.” Rixey could almost hear the wheels turning in McCallan’s brain. “Fine. I’ll throw some things in a bag and hit the road. You still at your brother’s?”

“Yeah.”

“With rush hour, it’ll probably take me an hour and a half to get there.”

“Roger that. And thanks.”

Shane disconnected without a reply.

Pulling the phone from his ear, Rixey prepared to eat his next big helping of crow. His next of three. Only question was whether Beckett Murda, Edward Cantrell, and Derek DiMarzio would give him the same chance as Shane.

And there was only one way to find out.

B
ECCA CAME AWAKE
on a gasp, the sensation of being watched sending her heart into an immediate sprint. After her bath, which she’d had to keep on the shallow side because of the stitches, she’d curled up on the couch and turned the TV on for background noise while she’d waited for Nick to finish with his calls and his friend Miguel to arrive. But the combination of her recent lack of sleep and the aftereffects of the attack at the hospital had made it impossible to keep her eyes open. Her nap hadn’t been particularly restful, though, as nightmares kept jolting her into bleary-eyed consciousness. She pushed up onto her elbow and found Nick standing at the foot of the sofa.

“Sorry,” he said.

She shook her head and slid into a sitting position in the corner, her knees tucked up underneath her. The puppy was curled on the floor in front of her, and she only opened her eyes long enough to make sure Becca was still there. “Everything okay?” she asked. Nick’s expression was like a storm, dark and turbulent, but she had no idea what could’ve caused it. Before her bath, he’d seemed quiet, almost pensive, but not agitated the way he did now.

“Everything’s fine.” His hands curled into fists.

She wished she knew how to help him, how to lighten whatever load he carried. Oh, who was she kidding? The load she’d pretty much dropped on top of him. Becca patted the leather cushion. “Sit with me?”

On a tired exhale, Nick settled into the far end of the leather sofa. He braced a still-booted foot against his knee. After hours of being in his own home, he still hadn’t fully relaxed. She was half surprised he wasn’t wearing his holster.

For a moment, she allowed herself to admire him—the strong profile, the curl of dark hair at his neckline, the band of ink around his thick bicep, the way the black denim clung to the bulk of his thigh muscles. He was so freaking gorgeous, it was hard
not
to look at him.

But it wasn’t just the physical, impressive as that was, that drew Becca in. He wore weariness like a second skin, maybe one he didn’t even realize he’d donned. She saw it in the tense set of his broad shoulders, like they bore an unseen weight. In the shadows of his yellow-green eyes, which never quite reflected humor or happiness even in those rare instances when he smiled. As someone who’d experienced way too much loss, Becca knew what grief felt like, the way it both hollowed you out and weighed you down. As a nurse, she was used to seeing people in pain. She knew what it looked like. The loss, the grief, the pain—it was sitting right in front of her. And it made her feel closer to him, or at least it made her
want
to be closer.

“I’m sorry about all this,” she said.

He looked her way. “What?”

Becca shifted toward him. “I pretty much just crash-landed into your life.”

He studied her for a long moment, something dark flashing behind his eyes, then he nodded. “I just hope I can help.”

“You already have.”

Without the least attempt to shield it, Nick ran his gaze over Becca’s body, clad in a plain lavender shirt and jeans. She shivered under his avid interest, as if it had been his fingers responsible for the exploration. Heat ran over her flesh, remembering all too well how good his touch felt. God, they’d come so close to having se—

“Are you okay, Becca? When I came into that room, and he had you halfway out that door, a blade in your side . . .” His hand gripped tight around his ankle and he looked away.

She scooted herself onto the middle cushion but stopped shy of touching him. His body almost vibrated with tension. “Nick, look at me.” When he did, she smiled. “We don’t know each other well, right? But I promise to be honest with you.” His brow furrowed, and she rushed to explain her words. “I want you to know that, especially with everything you’re doing for me. So, in the spirit of honesty, I’m ready to crawl out of my skin over Charlie, my joints ache, these damn stitches sting like crazy, and my headache still hasn’t gone away. And I’m pissed as
hell
about . . . all of it.” She reached out and placed her palm on his forearm, stroking her thumb over the corded muscle. “But I’m okay. By morning, the worst of the aches will be gone. Until then, ibuprofen is my friend.”

His jaw ticked and his gaze fell to her hand. “I don’t know all the details yet, but I think Miguel’s worried we can’t trust the police.”

Can’t trust the police?
Blood rushed through her ears until it thumped out an echo of the quickening pace of her heart. She forced herself to take a calming breath, not that it really worked. “Then how can we—”

“I called some friends, the remains of my team. Your father’s team,” he said, an odd tenor to his voice.

Her mouth dropped open. She’d never met any of the men on her dad’s A-Team. Heard a few stories, but that was about it. By the time she became an adult, her father’s deployment averaged over three hundred days a year. Sometimes she thought the other SF guys were more his family than she was. “The other four.” Without meaning to, her gaze dropped to his tattoo. With the
six
soldiers.

He nodded. “They’re all on their way. Three of them will be here tonight.” He looked at the chunky black watch on his wrist. “Probably within the next hour or so. The fourth is flying in tomorrow morning. These guys are the best. We’ll come up with a plan to figure this thing out.”

The news was good, a relief even, and prickled over Becca’s skin. “Wow. That’s . . . amazing.” But didn’t it also mean that . . . “Wait. If you guys are going to go after whoever has Charlie, whoever attacked me . . .” She searched his gaze. “Without the police . . .”

“If Miguel’s suspicions pan out, there’s no other way to do this now but off the grid.”

Becca’s stomach dropped. “But you could get in trouble. If something happened, you guys could—”

“
You’re
already in trouble, Becca. We can handle it.”

“I don’t doubt that.” She shook her head. “But why would they do this for us? Me and Charlie, I mean.” Why were these strangers dropping what they were doing and coming here? And how could she ask these men who’d already sacrificed so much to give even more? She frowned, guilt making her head throb harder.

“Because I asked them to. Simple as.” Something dark and protective flashed behind his eyes.

It’s for Charlie, Bec.

Becca latched onto that thought and hugged it tight. Maybe their camaraderie with her father drew them to this, the desire to help their fallen commander’s family? “Okay,” she said, finally. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to thank you. Any of you. I don’t think this is the kind of thing where a case of your favorite beer suffices.”

“Don’t thank us yet. Come on, why don’t we go downstairs?” He rose, scaring the puppy awake. “I’ll introduce you to everyone when they get here. In the meantime, you can harass Jeremy.”

Becca smiled. “Well, with an offer like that.” She scooped the shepherd into her arms and stood, her muscles protesting the movement after lying there so long. “What do you think of Phoebe?” When he frowned, she nodded to the dog.

He grimaced. “Too . . . dainty. Or something. And the ‘ph’ is weird. How ’bout Spike? After those ears.” He rounded the couch and headed toward the door.

She followed after. “I’m not sure you get this whole naming concept. Boys get boy names. Girls get girl names.
She
can’t be a Spike.”

He shrugged as he opened and closed the door for her. “Better than Phoebe.” They made their way downstairs, where, much to Nick’s consternation, they had to pause to let the puppy out back to do some business.

The evening air had a chill to it as they stood in the gravel watching the dog sniff every blade of grass around the edge of the lot.
Where are you, Charlie?

“I need to get a leash and a collar for her. And food. And all the other stuff a dog needs,” Becca said, trying to distract herself. Jess had run up to the convenience store and bought a small bag of food earlier, but it wouldn’t last long. “You know, when I decided to keep her this afternoon, I thought I’d be going home again.”