Las Vegas Sidewinders: Drake (Book 2) (16 page)

Her heart started
hammering in her chest as she realized what he was telling her. “I think so,
sir. Is there a chance of my going back?”

“Yes. In fact, if you
can pass the physical, you can pick your team. This is top secret, new
information coming out of the Pentagon, and only a select group of people
understand how vital it is to follow up on what your team discovered two and a
half years ago.” His eyes met hers.

“Sir?” She frowned in
confusion. “You mean, no one did anything?” She stared at him. “We found an
underground plant that was possibly making nukes in the Afghani desert and no
one did anything?!”

“We’ve had it under
surveillance, but apparently after the explosion, the fire fight, and the
follow-up search party, they abandoned the building. Then last week there was
activity in the area again. We believe Al Qaeda thinks enough time has passed
to get it running again.”

“And our mission would
be to—” She let her sentence trail off.

“Eliminate the threat.”

“I see.”

“I can give you a team
that will do the work, but you’re the person best suited to take care of the
logistics and make sure nothing goes wrong this time.”

“I need Garrison and
Mitchell,” she said automatically. She and Liv worked like two parts of a
whole, and she had no doubt that if Shay had trusted Mark to be his right arm,
then she had to as well.

“Lopez?”

She hesitated. “He’s a
newlywed and they just found out they’re having a baby. I want him, but I don’t
want to do that to them.”

“He’s a Marine,
Captain. Just like you. He’s not here to stay home.”

“No, sir.” She cleared
her throat. “Yes, Lopez, Marshall and Louie Faulk, as well.”

“Faulk is NSA.”

“Can you make that
happen anyway?”

“I can try.”

“I need him.”

“Okay.” The Colonel
rifled through some papers. “We can set your test for Monday.”

“I’ll be ready, sir.”

“And Erin?” He met her
gaze meaningfully. “This is classified. You will not speak to anyone about this
outside of this office, not even your team members, until after you’ve passed
your test. If you don’t pass, someone else will be chosen and you will no
longer have access to that information.”

 “If it’s not me,
it should be Lieutenant Garrison,” she spoke automatically.

“Thank you.” She was
dismissed and practically flew back to her desk. The test was Monday. Drake was
arriving Tuesday and she was meeting him at his hotel after work. He wanted her
to meet his friends and teammates, he’d said, and she’d agreed it was time. She
wasn’t sure what this news was going to do to them, but she knew he wouldn’t be
happy even though he would try to hide it from her.

Later that night,
making a cup of tea in the kitchen, Kate came in and sat at the table. Erin
hadn’t gotten home until after 8:00 p.m. and Kate had been on the phone the
whole evening. Now, there was an eerie silence between them because normally
they talked about their day, but tonight Erin was caught up in her own
thoughts.

“Are you going to tell
me what’s going on?” Kate asked after a few minutes. “Because you know that I
know everything about you and there is definitely something going on.”

“I can’t tell you.”
Erin turned, her eyes regretful as she stared at one of her best friends in the
world.

“Since when?” Kate
frowned.

“Since I could be tried
for treason if anyone found out.”

“Erin!” Kate gaped at
her.

“I can’t!” Erin
whispered, willing her friend to understand.

“Are you being
deployed?!” Kate asked, shocked.

“I take my exam
Monday—if I pass, we’ll leave Saturday.”

“What?!” Kate was still
in shock. “For how long? How can you ship out that fast?”

“It’s not a deployment;
it’s a mission.”

They stared at each
other. Finally, Kate got up and looked into her friend’s eyes. “You’ve wanted
to die since you came back. Don’t tell me this has never come up in therapy?”

Erin met her gaze in
surprise but said nothing.

“I
know
you. I
know you better than
anyone
, and now that Shay’s gone, you don’t want to
live. So you’re getting your chance to go out like a hero, which is what you
wanted all along.

“Well, if you want my
support, you’re not getting it.” Kate set her jaw and continued. “I’ve loved
and supported you through everything else, but I will not support this. You’re
going to pass that physical, I know that as sure as I’m standing here, but if
you go to Afghanistan, you’re going to do everything in your power not to come
back! I’ll be damned if I give you my blessing to die out there in that desert
with Shay’s memory.” She turned on her heel.

“Kate!” Erin ran after
her, tugging at her arm. “Wait! That’s not true! I don’t want to die—”

“Stop it!” Kate
wrenched her arm free. “Stop lying to yourself! I get it, okay? I know how much
you loved him and I can’t think of many things that suck more than what
happened to you over there. But you both knew the risks of being in the
military—you both got off on the danger, the
coolness
of being Marines,
and you went into it with your eyes wide open. I don’t know which one of you
was more stupid! He was so fucking full of himself, so absorbed with being the
best, he got so wrapped up in all of
that
, he lost sight of the most
important thing in the world to him—you. And you—so passive-aggressive, loving
him so much, but wanting him to come after you instead of just telling him how
you felt. Just like you’re doing with Drake.

“Well, I can’t watch it
anymore!” Kate shook her head. “You’re my best friend and I love you, but I’m
done watching you self-destruct. You did it with Shay and Clay, and now you’re
doing it again. I know you’ve been through hell, but instead of coming out on
the other side, you’re turning around and going right back in. Whatever you do
from here on out, it will be without me.”

“So we’re not friends
anymore because I’m a hot mess and might go on a secret mission?!” Erin finally
managed to snap out of her shock.

“I didn’t say we
weren’t friends,” Kate spoke quietly as she paused at the foot of the stairs.
“I just said I’m not going to help you self-destruct. I’ll be there if you
fall, but I’m not helping you jump.”

“I don’t know what that
means!” Erin cried, tears filling her eyes. “Why are you acting like this? You
know how much this means to me! All I’ve ever wanted was to be a Marine.”

“And
that
is the
biggest lie of all,” Kate said softly, her eyes meeting Erin’s. “All you ever
wanted since the day you met him was to be
Shay’s
. If he had married
you, you would be home having babies right now. The last thing in the world you
would be doing is going back to Afghanistan—and it’s the last thing in the
world he would
want
you to do.” With that, she hurried up the stairs and
a moment later Erin heard the door to her bedroom slam.

Still reeling, Erin
stared at where her friend had just been standing. Tears streaming down her
face, she sank into a chair and sobbed.

Tuesday morning was
bright and clear, despite the cold weather, and Erin made her way into the
office with butterflies in her stomach. Yesterday had been one of the hardest
days of her life, but she’d come out on top. It hadn’t been easy, but the
months of working out when she couldn’t sleep had helped and she almost
couldn’t believe she was on active duty again. It was so exciting, but there
wasn’t anyone to share it with because Kate was mad at her and, honestly, she
didn’t know how to tell Drake.

She’d hated not telling
him about it on the phone last night, but he’d seemed busy and distracted, so
they’d ended their nightly call early and she’d been relieved he wasn’t asking
too many questions about her day. She didn’t like lying, even if they were lies
of omission, and she wondered how much she would tell him tonight. Was it time
to mention her ties to the National Security Agency, and the joint task force
she and Shay had led? She didn’t know how else to explain that she had passed
her physical yesterday and was leaving for Afghanistan on Saturday. If she
didn’t tell him things she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, he would think that
she had known about this all along, and he would be furious. But the amount of
information she could give him was so limited. They weren’t married, and even
if they were, she would still have to keep details to a minimum.

“Good morning,
Captain.” Colonel Nicoletti interrupted her thoughts with a smile. “I
understand you had a good day yesterday.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you have a lot of
work to do between now and Saturday.”

“I’m going to have to
leave early today,” she said, taking a breath. “I have to sort out my personal
situation. I’m limited in what I can tell Drake, but I have to tell him
something and we have plans tonight.”

“You’re going to need
to sort that out quickly. I’ve been on the phone all morning and your team will
be arriving tomorrow. We’ll be in briefings the rest of the week, so make sure
you have your affairs in order.”

“Yes, sir.” She turned
and hurried to her desk. Drake would be landing around 4:00 p.m. and the team
was going straight to the hotel. She was meeting them in the hotel restaurant
at 7:00. They had planned for him to spend the night at her house since he had
a roommate at the hotel, and then she would drop him off back at the hotel in
the morning before she went to work. That was the plan anyway. She didn’t know
what was going to happen once she told him about Afghanistan; in the back of
her mind, she wondered if that would be the end for them.

Turning on her
computer, she thought about her argument with Kate. They hadn’t really spoken
since, and it hurt to watch Kate boxing up her things in silence. She would be
leaving in two weeks, and if Erin left Saturday, Kate would have to close up
the townhouse for her. Despite their disagreement, she knew Kate would do what
had to be done. There was no questioning their bond and friendship, but her
words had hurt. Erin had had no idea Kate felt that way, and though there had
been quite a bit of truth to her words, it still stung to know some of the
people closest to her thought she wanted to die.

One thing Kate had been
right about was the passive-aggressive game she had played with Shay. She knew
she shouldn’t have married Clay and she should have stood up to Shay after
their night together. Instead, she’d buried herself in work and married a man
she didn’t love almost in spite of herself. In retrospect, it was so incredibly
stupid. One conversation could have changed the course of all of their lives.
Shay might even be alive because they might have been married, or on maternity
leave or any number of different scenarios that would have kept them away from
that road in Afghanistan that particular day. There were so many things that
could have gone differently if she’d just been honest.

Now she was going to
have to find a way to be honest with Drake. She wasn’t being fair to him, and
she felt the distance growing between them. She was entirely too caught up in
herself, and it was time to change that. She didn’t have a plan, but she wasn’t
going to make another mistake. This time, she had to do things right. She just
didn’t know exactly what the right thing was.

Making her way into the
hotel that evening, Erin felt a moment of unease. She had no idea what Drake’s
friends knew about her or their relationship, and she wondered how much he had
told his buddies about her. Trust, she reminded herself firmly. How many times
had he asked her to trust him? Standing up straight, she forced herself to walk
into the restaurant with confidence and ease. No matter what she felt on the
inside, she was still a soldier trained to stay in control. She’d allowed
herself to forget that over the last two years, but she could no longer afford
to wallow. She was on active duty again, and she was going to have to suck it
up.

Drake saw her the
moment she entered the room, and he could almost feel the change in her.
Something was different; she stood taller and straighter, her face was calm and
relaxed, and she wore an almost serene smile. She wore a simple black dress
that fell just below her knees and had long sleeves. It was beautiful, but
strategically chosen because it covered her scars, and she looked stunning. He
blinked for a moment, taking it in, before standing up and walking towards her.

“Hello, beautiful.” He
reached out to hug her, brushing her cheek with his lips and forgetting the
distance he’d promised himself he would put between them.

“Hi!” She gazed up at
him with such an adoring smile he momentarily forgot what he was going to say.

“You look different,”
he said softly. “Happier.”

“I have all kinds of
things to tell you,” she whispered. “But let’s meet your friends and have
dinner. We can talk when we’re alone.”

“I’m intrigued.” He
took her hand and guided her back to the table. He’d told everyone at the table
about Erin’s general issues, though only Karl knew the details. He’d wanted
them to know about her scars since they would surely notice the ones on her
arms and possibly on her face, though those were healing beautifully and easily
covered with makeup. Besides everything going on with them personally, he felt
it was important to mention her service to her country and her sacrifices. If
there was one thing that truly bugged him, it was people who didn’t respect the
men and women in the armed forces.

“Hi,” Erin breathed a
short greeting as Drake pulled out her chair for her.

“Guys, this is Erin.”
He turned and began pointing to everyone in the group. “That’s Dom Gianni and
his girlfriend, Molly.”

“We’ve heard so much
about you,” Molly spoke with a smile, her green eyes lingering on Erin’s face.

“Our team captain, Cody
Armstrong and his wife, Suzanne.” Drake continued.

“Call me Suze,” a beautiful
blond woman said with a smile. She and her husband were both movie star
gorgeous and Erin blinked at them.

“Anatoli Petrov,” Drake
pointed to a tall Russian with spiky blond hair and crooked teeth who gave her
a huge grin.

“I am Toli,” he said in
heavily accented English. “Only mother uses
Anatoli
, and this is when I
am in trouble, yes?”

They all laughed.

“Karl’s sitting with
some other friends,” he told her, since he knew she would be wondering about
the best friend he talked about often. “But he’ll come meet you later.”

“It’s so nice to meet
you all,” Erin said, smiling. “I feel terrible that I haven’t been to Vegas
yet, but it’s been a rough few months since we met and I used up most of my
leave for my medical issues.”

“She’s gorgeous,” Suze
told Drake. “The pictures you showed us didn’t do her justice.”

Drake just smiled when
Erin flushed.

A waitress came to take
their orders and the conversation flowed easily for a while, discussing the
current hockey season, the snowy weather and the babies both Molly and Suze
were expecting. It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to Erin’s
work, and when Molly asked her how long she would remain on light duty, she
realized she was either going to perpetrate a lie or start trusting the
wonderful man in her life.

“Well,” she said
slowly, looking around. “I actually got some news today, and I was going to
tell you when we were alone,” she looked at Drake, reaching for his hand
underneath the table. “But I guess I can tell you all now.” She paused and took
a deep breath. “I passed my physical yesterday. I’ve been released back to full
duty.”

For a moment no one
spoke. Then Drake reached over to lightly brush his lips across hers. “That’s
wonderful. You did it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know,” she admitted
truthfully. “Colonel Nicoletti came to me on Friday and asked me if I thought I
could pass the test. There are some security issues going on that fall under my
specialty, but I couldn’t really deal with them without being back on full
duty. So he set it up for yesterday and I passed.”

“So what does this
mean?” Molly asked, cocking her head slightly. She knew from Dom that Drake
believed Erin would never leave the military and was most likely going to break
up with her tonight, but now that she’d met her, she found the younger woman
enchanting. She and Drake seemed perfect together and she hated to see them
fall apart.

“It means that I’m back
on full duty but I can’t tell you any specifics because they’re classified.”
She looked around the table. “I know that you guys know what happened to me in
Afghanistan, and I’ve been through a lot in the last two years. I hope you can
understand how important it is to me to be 100% again—it’s not about being a
Marine or my military career; it’s about finding myself. I left a piece of
myself out there in that desert and I need to make sure that I make decisions
about the future based on what I want, not what’s forced on me because of my
injuries.”

“Does that mean you’re
leaving the military?” Drake asked, frowning slightly.

“I don’t know yet.
There’s something going on—I’m sorry, I truly can’t talk about it—and I have to
see it through. It’s my job.” Her gaze fell on Drake and her eyes pleaded with
him to understand. “Please give me a little leeway on this—it’s a matter of
national security.”

“Something related to
terrorists?” Suze asked bluntly.

“You’ll have to draw
your own conclusions,” Erin said lightly. “But that’s pretty much our priority
these days.”

Once again, a small
silence fell on the group. Damn, Erin thought irritably, she just couldn’t seem
to get things right. Her silence was wrong and opening up didn’t seem right
either, but she refused to give up. Somehow, she had to find a way to tell
Drake what he needed to know without endangering him or giving away state
secrets.

“Well, I think
congratulations are in order,” Drake said, lifting his wineglass. “To being
back on full duty!”

“Cheers!” Everyone
raised their glasses.

Just as Erin took a sip
she heard a familiar voice behind her that made her cringe. “Ahh, just what the
doctor ordered—Captain Gentry back on full duty.” Clay’s words coursed through
her like a shock wave and she whipped her head around in surprise.

“Clay, what do you
want?” she narrowed her eyes.

“I thought I’d come
meet your friends,” he said, wobbling slightly. He was undoubtedly drunk, his
eyes glassy and cheeks slightly ruddy. “Did you know Erin is divorced? I’m her
ex, the poor schmuck she left to run off with my
twin
brother to
Afghanistan. Except she came back and he didn’t.”

Drake stood up. “Look,
you need to stop. I don’t care what happened between you and Erin. She’s mine
now, and you need to
back off
.”

“Oh, look at the tough
guy!” Clay threw back his head and laughed. “You think she’s going to be
faithful to you now that she’s got her pretty face and fancy military title
back? She’s going to fuck whoever can get her to her next promotion!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,
Clay!” Erin stood up too. “What’s the matter with you? You know damn well I
didn’t sleep with anyone to get any promotions! Even if I did sleep with Shay,
which I did
not
, he wasn’t the one who would decide if I got a
promotion! Stop talking out your ass and leave us alone.”

“Leave you alone?” His
eyes gleamed with something evil. “Like you left my brother alone in that desert?”

“I did not leave him
alone!” She was breathing hard now, her fists clenched at her sides. “I died
trying to get to him. Yes, the others brought me back, but I
died
! I
didn’t leave him anywhere and you fucking know it!”

“You left him there!”
he screamed at her, leaning forward. “And now you’re just carrying on your
merry way with a guy who looks like him!” He turned towards the others at the
table. “Did she ever show you a picture of my brother? They look alike, except
Shay’s eyes were blue. Same sandy colored wavy hair, same build, your guy is
just a little taller… Don’t you see she’s just trying to replace the guy she
got killed?”

He was beginning to
draw attention and Erin felt her control slipping. Cody and Toli had both also
stood up and she could feel the tension coming from Drake.