In the Air Tonight (38 page)

“DMH is down, but they’re not out. And they’re not the only ones. Groups like that are spawning faster than the government can stop them,” Dylan told the group. “The military’s hands are tied in a lot of ways. They’re a huge part of the takedown, but they’re limited.”

“And we wouldn’t be,” Cam said. “So far, we haven’t been.”

“No, but you’re also not above the law,” Reid said, shaking loose from Cam’s grasp. “Are you?”

“No one’s above the law. Sometimes you just have to find a way to work around it until you can work with it,” Dylan said with a smile. “So are you in?”

R
eid was the first one to agree, which surprised Caleb—he would’ve thought the man would’ve waited for Kell in order to fill him in on Dylan’s offer. Mace was talking to Cam, and now, as Caleb stood looking out the front window while his friends talked behind him, he waited for Dylan to approach.

“Do you really remember everything?” his older brother asked bluntly.

“Yeah, I remember you and Zane … our family.” That’s what Dylan had really wanted to know. Caleb knew it must’ve killed him not to be able to come to the hospital to see him, to know that Cael would’ve
been more frustrated than happy to see either of his brothers.

“Good.” Dylan stared out the window as well, and waited. Together they watched the light snowfall in silence, until Caleb broke it by asking, “You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you—having us all work together?”

Dylan didn’t deny it. Caleb knew his brother had always played lone wolf, more so because he didn’t want to risk getting anyone else hurt. “Riley thinks it’s a good idea for us to have a bigger team on our side.”

“Ah, so it’s about Riley, then.”

“Shut up, Caleb.”

That made Cael smile. “Does Zane know about all of this?”

“Yeah.”

“He said no, didn’t he?”

“He said he’d work with me as he always has … but he’s not ready to get out yet either.” Dylan paused. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever be.”

Neither had Caleb. There would be a certain degree of lawlessness to the venture that would never have appealed to him before. But after what he’d been through, he knew the old, buttoned-up Caleb was pretty well dead and buried. The man emerging from the wreckage was a combination of his present and his past, but he wasn’t defined by that past—not anymore.

“I’m not sure about a lot of things these days,” he told Dylan. And then he went to find Vivi, who was in the back room, staring at the computer screen.

Now that everything was leveling out, there were
decisions to be made in tandem with her. And so he sat down across from her and told her about Dylan’s offer. Remaining in the area and using this bar as a home base.

“Would that bother you, me leaving the Army and working with Dylan and Cam?”

“No,” she said. “I knew what you were when I fell in love with you. A warrior doesn’t change his spots just because he leaves the service. Besides, you’re good at helping people … I wouldn’t ever want you to stop that.”

“You’re getting pretty good at it yourself.”

That prompted a smile.

“Please stay, Vivi. Here … wherever. The location doesn’t matter. But we have a second chance and I don’t want to throw it away.”

She paused and then got up from behind the desk and walked over to him. Sat in his lap and stroked his cheek and said, “If I stay—”

“If?”

She ignored that. “Will you let me help? Will Dylan?”

“Yeah, he will. I’m not losing you again, Vivi. I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that. But that’s not why you look worried.”

She’d been frowning a little, a slight furrow in her brow. “It’s just … between us, it’s always been about being in danger. What if none of this is real?”

“I’ve always found those bonds to be the strongest. The truest,” he challenged her fears, wanting to silence them, the same way she’d helped silence his. “When you’re stripped down, that’s when everything’s at its most real. The rest of this crap … that’s
all part of the learning curve. And I’m happy to keep learning.”

She simply smiled and hugged him. “I want you to promise you’ll keep scaring me—in the good way—for a long time,” she murmured against his neck.

“There’s no getting rid of me now,” he promised her.

T
he news about Jeffrey was everywhere, although Mace and Caleb and Reid’s names and faces stayed out of the news. Paige had no idea how they pulled that off—and she was told, sternly, not to ask. She figured it had to do with the fact that a Delta Force operative shouldn’t be the subject of national news.

Still, the press searched her out at the bar—Ed and Doc helped her deal with them. She’d given a brief statement, finally getting to apologize to the families her brother had hurt, the way she’d wanted to all these years.

Although she would always be associated with Jeffrey, she had her closure.

Carole Ann had been transported to a women’s prison, where she’d be kept until her trial and then hopefully for a long while after her conviction. Paige would be there to testify, because she refused to let her fear rule her life. The police were investigating the women on Jeffrey’s message board, in case any of them decided to seek revenge on Paige.

It helped that Mace would be by her side. And, it appeared, the rest of Gray’s Delta Force friends would play a large role in her life too from now on, along with Vivi. Vivi, who’d agreed to stay here with Caleb.

Reid had insisted that if this was to remain the home base for their newly formed team, they would need to tear the building down and build it with much thicker walls.

“You know, I can’t stand to hear all your loving—keeps me up at night,” were his actual words.

She could handle having Reid around. She could even handle Kell, the tall, silent man who’d walked into the bar the morning after Cam and Dylan spoke to the men. He’d dropped his bag to the ground and sat in a chair as though he belonged there.

And he did. They all belonged here. Together.

Even so, the men would have to finish their time with the military—getting out wasn’t as easy as it had once been, and she was faced with the prospect of being alone. Again.

“But you won’t be alone,” Mace had promised her. “That’s the point of this. You’ll stay with Cam and Skylar or Dylan and Riley. Or Reid or Caleb and Vivi if I’m the only one gone. You won’t be alone again, unless you want to be.”

She didn’t expect she ever would. And still, she had to ask, “Am I here because you promised Gray you’d take care of me?”

“You were at first, yes. Now you’re here because I’d be a goddamned fool to let you go … and I’ve never been a fool.”

“I haven’t been here for Gray since that first night I bartended,” she admitted. “This is a home, Mace. Our home … sprawling and noisy, with lots of family around.”

He nodded, a small smile on his face, his eyes far away as he looked around and saw the possibilities of
new construction … of how all their lives could change with Dylan’s offer.

And then he took her hands in his and held them curled together to his chest, and for the first time in her life, she was more than thrilled to have magic hands, to know exactly what Mace was feeling right now.

“Me too, Mace … love you forever,” she whispered against his ear before moving to press a kiss on his mouth, and then his arms came around her as she watched the sunset through the front window of the bar. “Are we opening tonight?” she asked as she caught his hands in hers, felt their warmth, his strength flowing through her.

“If you’re bartending,” he murmured against her neck. Her hands went up around his neck, her fingers twining in his hair. Touching him was so easy now. So natural—so right.

She was finally free, in so many ways, and she had him to thank for it. And so she did.

“You freed me too, Paige,” Mace told her. “You have no damned idea how much. You helped bring my family back together.”

“And now I’m part of it,” she said.

“Yes, a big part of it,” he agreed.

It had taken her a long time, but finally Paige had found home.

If you loved
In the Air Tonight
, don’t miss the next book in Stephanie Tyler’s red-hot Shadow Force series

NIGHT MOVES

Coming from Dell in fall 2011.
Read on for a sneak peak inside.

F
OURTEEN YEARS EARLIER

K
ell Roberts had been at the foster home in Dillingham, Alaska, for three months, four days and sixteen hours and had managed to lie his way through every damned minute when the blond kid arrived with a deep Southern drawl, a bag Kell would later discover contained barely anything and an attitude as big as the hills, all to share Kell’s room. He barely acknowledged Kell’s existence, got into bed and didn’t get up for twenty-four hours straight.

Kell didn’t think enough of it to ask anyone his name. Roommates came and went here and he’d always found it better to not get involved.

On the second day, Kell’s wallet went missing along with various and sundry other items and although Kell had no proof other than his gut that it was the work of the blond kid, it left him alternately pissed and impressed.

On the third day, the blond kid registered for school and never made it to his first class because the
counselor who met with him recommended home-schooling, deeming the kid
unfit for a school environment due to the undue negative influence he had over other students in previous environments
.

On the fourth night, Kell woke up to find his new roommate climbing out of the third-floor window. He followed the Louisiana-born boy with the deep drawl to their foster mom’s four-wheel-drive truck and wondered how he thought he could take it for a ride during an icy storm. And then he decided he needed to see how much of a death wish Blond Kid had.

He’d always had a pretty big one himself.

Blond Kid, who he’d soon find out was named Reid, had the truck hot-wired by the time Kell pushed into the passenger’s side. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

Reid glanced at him coolly. “And you’re coming along for the ride?”

Kell answered by shutting the door and securing his seatbelt. Reid didn’t bother to follow suit.

“I want my fucking wallet back,” Kell said finally, and Reid laughed as the car skidded down the long driveway, leaving Kell feeling as out of control as he’d ever been and strangely liberated at the same time. “Where are we going?”

“There’s got to be a bar around here somewhere.”

“They all card.” Both boys were tall for their age but no way were they passing for twenty-one. What the hell was this kid thinking?

“I borrowed some ID,” Reid said with a calm drawl, like he didn’t have a care in the world. Kell knew that was complete bullshit and was quick to learn that in Reid’s vocabulary,
borrow
meant
steal
.

Kell had grown up with that type of vocabulary as well.

Reid drove for about ten minutes with surprising skill and then the car skidded and Kell saw his life flashing before his eyes, just like everyone said it did. The sad part was, beyond remembering all the cons he’d learned to pull over the years, there wasn’t really much else. He heard Reid cursing throughout the slide and then he came to and they were in the ditch.

Reid was unconscious and the police were on their way and Kell got out of the car and he started walking back to the house, covering his footprints behind him because he wasn’t taking the blame for anyone else.

Everyone in this world is out for themselves—that’s the way you have to live, son—look out for yourself and screw everyone else
.

He remembered, in that brief moment, that his parents had included him in that sentiment. It was the reason he’d turned them in and ended up in a foster home in Alaska instead of with them.

He returned to the car and hauled Reid out, knowing nothing about spinal injuries and not moving unconscious people … all he knew was that he wouldn’t leave Reid behind to shoulder the blame alone, even though the damned kid had stolen his wallet and he still didn’t known the blond kid’s name—until he’d opened his eyes and mumbled it, because Kell had finally asked.

“This state sucks,” Reid mumbled then and closed his eyes to stop the tears and Kell pretended not to notice and then, a few minutes later, Reid was up,
leaning on him as they walked the frigid mile back to the foster home.

Kell’s parents would be so damned disappointed in him, yet again—he’d saved Reid’s ass, so he’d definitely been born with the conscience they lacked.

Well, shit, you did learn something new every day.

They caught hell, of course—the foster mom was not stupid, although she did protect them from the police. It took Reid and him the better part of six months to work off the damage to the car, piecing it back together with the local mechanic and honing their skills in the process.

It was Reid’s fourth foster home in the space of a year and Kell’s first and only. They lasted out another full year before emancipating and heading out to work along the docks of the Bering Sea—punishing, cruel work.

It was nowhere near as bad as the work that would follow, but being young and strong with a death wish would always work in their favor.

T
he stolen Jeep, courtesy of Reid, was parked away from the road while Kell and Reid lay, belly-down, twenty feet apart in the middle of the long stretch of desert road between the Rio Grande and El Paso, along the Ciudad Juarez border in Chihuahua, Mexico.

The long stretch of now pitch-black road the drug kingpin they were after traveled weekly.

The night smelled like smoke and danger. Kell could taste both on his tongue, the familiar tingle began in his spine and Reid murmured in his miked ear, “Any minute now and the little chicken’s going to cross the road.”