Page 49

Real good.

When I went downstairs, Roberta was at the desk. She straight-up reminded me of Peg Bundy—lots of make-up, red hair teased high—but without the cigarettes the Married with Children character smoked constantly.

“Hey, Doll, how you doing?”

“I’m doing fine, Roberta. How are the kids?”

“My little darlins are driving me up a wall. Was so glad that Gretchen called me in for a shift today. Before she handed over the keys, she handed me a pan of fresh-baked peanut-butter cookies with chocolate chunks. I don’t suppose you’d want any?”

“I don’t know, would you kill me if I took any from you?” I teased.

“I might. Let’s see how it goes.”

She held out the pan. I snatched three before she could pull the pan back.

“Dammit, Kai. That was not a nice thing to do.”

“What, were you planning on giving them to your kids?”

“Hell no. I was going to eat them for breakfast, mid-morning snack, and then lunch.”

“Not dinner?”

“There weren’t going to be any left for dinner. The only reason I offered them to you is I like how you fill out a t-shirt.”

“Ro, if only you weren’t married to a man who could take me out with one punch, I’d take you away from all of this and make you mine.”

“As if. Rumor has it that you're spending time with our new math teacher. Heard you took her to Gatlinburg for the all-important third date. How’d that go?” Roberta waggled her eyebrows.

“A gentleman never tells.” Even if Marlowe and I booked a hotel for a night in Gatlinburg so that nobody would notice my truck outside her house for the night, or her truck outside this place for the night, somebody from here would still report I hadn’t come back here for the night. I was going to have to talk to Marlowe about this on Thursday when she was making me dinner.

“How ’bout I offer you two more cookies?”

“Huh?” I’d lost the plot.

“If you tell me if you and Marlowe slept together, I’ll give you two more cookies.”

“Nope, not going to do it. Anyway, I’ve got to get going. I’m heading up the mountain.”

“Okay, Doll. You be safe.”

“Always.”

I chuckled to myself at her words. ‘Be careful.’ Hell yes. ‘Be safe.’ Well, that was always a crap shoot. But my team was good. Damn good. I really needed to check in with some of the other guys besides Clay. Now that my mood was looking up, I felt up to talking to them.

I threw my gear into the back of the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat. I took the road that Lettie had told me to take and ended up at a small cabin. Looking at the dirt around the front steps, nobody had been there for a while. But I had to smile at the painted rocks that decorated each of the steps that led up to the porch. I wouldn’t have thought the place would have been big enough for a family to have lived here.

I shrugged. Not my business. I grabbed my pack out of the back of my truck and shrugged it onto my shoulders. It felt great that now that I was allowed to carry forty pounds. I really didn’t need forty pounds of gear, but I wanted the exercise. I looked around and saw a definite path into the woods so I took it. Soon I was in a different time and space, and I was loving it.

I’d grown up around the ocean. Then after joining the Army, there were times I could sit and be surrounded by the quiet of a massive desert. I had trudged through jungles for months on end, and still there were times I could look past the heat and bugs and see the lush beauty. But this? This forest with the sun sparkling down through the trees, was glorious. Every sight, smell, and sound immersed me in bliss.

When I was thirty meters away from my target, I stopped before I would’ve lost my forest camouflage. There was about twenty meters of clear-cut around the front and both sides of the two-story A-frame with a deck out front. Smart. I wondered whether it was to help with forest fires, or to let him see who was coming toward him. I needed to check if the clear-cut extended to the back of the house as well.

Ten years of training was a hard thing to let go of, so I took out the binoculars that really weren’t that expensive but had all the bells and whistles I wanted. I took my time doing my reconnaissance. I went all around the property, and by the time I made it around to the south side, I smelled beef grilling.

I returned to where I started and watched Bernie Faulkes turn three steaks over and put three foil-wrapped potatoes onto the grill. I also clocked a rifle leaning up against the side of the house that hadn’t been there before. I took note of the Bowie knife strapped to his belt.

“Are we eating out here, or inside?” A woman called out from inside.