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“Making a damn fool of yourself, Titus,” he grumbled, but that was that. Luke scratched, Wade seethed, and Shay drank her coffee and watched everyone until Madison said, “They’re in the office.”
“Finally,” said Shay, blowing out a breath.
“Tell me again who came up with this insane plan?” said Wade.
“Chase,” Shay said evenly.
“Hey!” said Luke.
“Sorry, honey. You helped.”
Titus paused his gyrations momentarily, then continued bicycling with his hind legs.
“We megged him,” said Luke.
“I have no earthly idea what that means, young man.”
“Here, I’ll show you. Stand up.”
Luke sprang to his feet. Wade cast another glance at Shay, but stood warily and faced Luke. Luke rolled a rubber ball he’d brought for Titus between them with his toe.
“Don’t let me get it past you,” said Luke.
“Please,” said Wade, towering over the young boy.
Luke juked left, then right, and when Wade widened his stance in response, Luke drilled the ball right between his legs. Luke darted around him and ran down a long hallway, the dog bounding behind him, barking like mad.
“It’s called a nutmeg,” said Shay, smiling.
Wade grunted, then leaned against his kitchen sink.
“So your grand plan was to kick a ball between the legs of one of the most powerful men on the planet?”
“The key to a nutmeg is to do it so quickly and seamlessly that your opponent only realizes it after the fact.”
Wade folded his arms.
“It’s reckless. You should have come to me first. We could have come up with a better plan.”
“Chase did come to you. You didn’t give him a chance. You never did.”
“I gave him the same chance as everyone else.”
“Bullshit,” she spat. Shay looked over at her daughter. Madison hadn’t noticed the outburst. She tapped away on her keyboard, headphones on, concentrating on the conversation at Avalon Headquarters.
Wade leveled a finger at his former executive officer.
“You could have done so much better for yourself than that… that snake-oil salesman.”
Shay raised her eyebrow. It usually silenced Chase. It didn’t work quite as effectively on Wade. “Chase didn’t bat an eye at torpedoing his business and professional reputation to protect us. Say what you want, but the man has flair.”
“Too much flair for my taste,” muttered Wade. “I just never understood it, is all. Damn it, Summers, you could have been a general! You were the finest officer I ever worked with. You could have gone all the way. I’m talking commandant material.” Wade blew out a long breath, looked off to the side. “It’s not what I wanted for you.”
“It’s what I wanted for me.”
Shay was no stranger to combat. Once upon a time she had also been Wade’s second in command, JSIVA-9’s executive officer. She had led a unit of terrorist-operations experts, security op specialists, engineers, emergency managers… all culled from special operations, the finest the different services had to offer.
And she had been in charge.
