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He heard her sniffle and told himself not to look. Not to see her tears because then he’d cry too.
36
Good Old Times
“You guys didn’t need to come with me,” Luke said two days later.
He’d called Zane yesterday, told him what was going on, then they brought Trace in.
He supposed he needed some men who had the same history as him to know what was going on and understand where he was coming from.
His mother aside, he was dedicated to his career. As much as it might be easy to pay these guys off, intimidate them, flash his badge and do all sorts of things he dreamed of yesterday to make them hurt, he couldn’t.
He was sworn to abide by the law and protect. Not be a dirty cop. Not go behind the rules for his own satisfaction.
A lot of calls had been made and what was going to happen was going down faster than he thought, but in his mind, he knew it had to be this way.
“Are you kidding me?” Zane said. “No man left behind. This is like the good old times.”
He laughed. “Hardly that.” It’d pained him to tell Zane what was going on, but he knew his best friend would understand and not judge when he was trying to form the words last night.
“I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Trace said in the backseat. “First off, I’m familiar with the area. Second of all, no man left behind. Third, this is great research. Besides, we are only watching.”
He tried not to laugh, but these two men sure brought it out of him. “I told you I’d try to help.”
“And you are,” Trace said.
“What’s the plan?” Zane asked. They were two hours into their drive and only about thirty minutes out from the meet.
“I thought you were the leader,” Luke said, looking at his best friend.
“This is your deal and you know it,” Zane said. “We are just along for good old times like I said.”
“You’re used to being the one calling the shots,” he said.
“Not anymore,” Zane said. “I’m married. I gave that up a long time ago.”
Trace laughed. “I heard you gave it up when Willow started to talk.”
He laughed and looked over to see Zane blushing. “Yeah, something like that. Thank God for Ryder to even the score a bit.”
“Until the next one comes,” Luke said.
“You’re looking pretty cozy yourself right now,” Zane said. “You’re one to talk.”
“That’s right,” Trace said. “Give him hell. Were you two like this in the Army?”
Trace never served with them, and Zane and he were inseparable.
“Always,” Zane said. “Believe it or not, Luke was the one that got the guys laughing more than anything. I never met a man that could just shut it off when the mission was over before and be like it never happened.”
“Years of practice,” he said. “As you can tell, I’ve had the fairytale upbringing here.”
There was silence to that statement. Then Zane said, “Dude. It’s not who you are and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. What you’re doing today is right when so many would have done the wrong thing.”
“Yep,” he said. He’d heard enough of that from Heather last night no matter how much his childhood flashed in his brain while he was trying to sleep. Back in his old neighborhood, they took care of this stuff on their own…no rules…no laws to care if you broke. You just hoped you weren’t caught.
He refused to let himself be pulled back there and was disgusted with himself for those brief thoughts.
