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I tear myself away, stomping back outside, ignoring her eyes trailing after me. This whole thing is a mistake.
It’s just a question of how fucking big, how irreparable it really is.
Worst part is, I hate being an asshole to her. My stomach knots at something that used to come naturally.
Wicked, wicked irony.
I don’t know who I’m becoming. Red has me so tangled up in her innocence, her beauty, her living cliché, I’m risking the only thing that’ll ever give my dead friends peace.
That has to stop now.
“Shit.” I glance up at the clock hanging in my shop. It’s an old Felix the Cat hand-me-down from my grandpa, big mechanical eyeballs moving with every tick. It’s past eight thirty, long after I should have come inside, sat down for dinner, and then brought my little girl upstairs.
I throw the parts down I’ve been working on, wiping my hands. Pretending to, anyway. I can’t keep my eyes off the black truck, almost invisible in the night, a demon chance taunting me.
If I could find an excuse to sneak out there, fuck with a few choice parts, and then return it myself…
No, asshole, I warn myself for the thousandth time.
It’s too insane. Too evil. Too risky.
Unless I know for sure her prick of a brother will be driving, without endangering anybody else on the road, I can’t take him out like this.
Right?
The clock ticks louder than usual. It brings my gaze to the same picture that always draws my eyes, the one with my boys outside Kandahar.
It flashes through my head again like lightning. War, mistakes, and murder return in the blink of an eye.
The prick himself, Jackson, younger and cockier. Selling our commanding officer a load of horseshit about how easy it would be, how sure he thought the target was in the mountain compound, virtually unguarded.
It didn’t jive with everything we’d heard from the villages at the foot of the mountain. But fuck, the drone’s photos seemed to back up the prick’s story. He was gunning for a big promotion. So certain he volunteered to lead us into the thick of it himself.
He had local sources, see. More than just grainy pics. Guys who hadn’t been vetted by proper intelligence, and who liked to tell tall tales to anybody in a U.S. uniform in exchange for a few precious dollars, which can stretch for weeks in Afghanistan.
They also loved to murder the shit out of rivals who’d crossed them in blood feuds and ancient politics. They loved it even more when we did their dirty work for them.
I knew the scheme. I saw how uneasy Adam looked. Remembered that look Zane gave me with his eyes, pleading, say something, sir.
And I did. I voiced my objection. The commander said he’d consider it, and, of course, it was overruled by morning.
We did our best, and our best became a clusterfuck.
Our best got good men killed.
Our best was a completely preventable shit show egged on by a glory hog who refused to take the fall. The very same asshole who limped home to our little town and did the same shit here, exploiting his purple heart at every opportunity.
There’s a sour taste in my mouth. Reaching under the bench, I grab one of the last beers from my New Year’s pack and crack it open. I need to take the edge off. I chug half the contents on the walk to the house.
Red stops me mid-sentence once I’m inside, seeing her there at the table.
One look turns my blood molten. She’s ready for bed, wrapped in a tight skin-colored gown that leaves too damn little to the imagination. Hell, it’s like it forces me to picture her naked.
What are you trying to do, woman? What the hell are you trying to do?
“You couldn’t wait till you were down for the night?” I glare at her, hard and unblinking. “Dress code.”
“It’s as fancy as what you’re wearing, Mr. Bluejeans.” She rolls her eyes, watching me snatch off my faded jean jacket and throw it on the scuffed hanger by the door.
“Mia?” I ask. The familiar shot of adrenaline only a father knows spikes my blood.
“I put her down a little early. Upset tummy. She’s sleeping peacefully upstairs, if you want to say goodnight. But, uh, maybe you need a napkin or something first?” She smiles, giving a terse nod at the beer droplets clinging to my chin.
I don’t even reach for the napkin she tries to pass, wiping my face with my sleeve. “Whatever.”
Ignoring her half eye roll, I head upstairs to Mia’s room. I stand next to my little girl’s bed, stroking her hair, watching her sleep.
I hate missing story time. Haven’t done that for the better part of a year.
Tonight, she’s peaceful. Such a sweet contrast to the uneasy tossing and turning, the nightmares that used to wrack her brain. It’s been about a year since she woke up screaming in the middle of the night.
