"When Bobby came to pick me up for the party, there were a couple of other guys in the car I didn't know very well. They'd been drinking, but I didn't think anything of it, 'cause Bobby was sober and driving. I felt safe. He was Trey's friend. That was my mistake."

Bryan's eyes bored into hers, and he continued to grip his fork in such a way that it would never be the same when this conversation was over. She shredded the napkin in her own lap as she kept talking. If she stopped, she'd never get through this. She'd been so d.a.m.n nave, then compounded the issue by being a coward.

"There was no party at the levee that night, at least not the kind that I'd been expecting." She closed her eyes.

She could still feel the sharp stones biting into her back as Bobby held her down on the ground and the other two boys pulled at her shorts, trying to unb.u.t.ton them and drag them down her legs. She shook her head to clear the images and took a sip of water before continuing.

She swallowed hard. "Growing up . . . you and Trey taught me a lot about defending myself. But there were three of them. Two were football players."

Bryan was staring at her. The look in his eyes was pure agony. She wasn't giving him all the details, but she knew his imagination was more than filling in the blanks.

"Sa.s.sy, please tell me what happened. I'm dying here. I want to go back home and kill Bobby Hughes with my bare hands . . ."

She stared back at him and took another breath. "They didn't rape me, but they got my shorts and T-shirt off. I gave Bobby a black eye in the process. And yeah, I think he would have a.s.saulted me himself if one of the farmers hadn't driven through, checking on some kind of equipment in the fields between the levee and the river. The boys had parked right by the man's tractor, a.s.suming everything was shut down for the night. Old man Foster found me and got me home."

"What happened when you reported it and pressed charges?"

"What makes you think I reported anything?" She'd meant for the comment to sound sarcastic, but her breath caught, and it sounded more like a sob.

"I was from the wrong side of the tracks with a mother who was the town drunk and rumored to sleep with any man who'd bring her a fifth of whiskey. I'd willingly gotten in the car with three older boys. I'd just turned fifteen, but I was old enough to know how that would play."

Bryan shook his head in disbelief as she kept talking. "I didn't report anything. I showed up when school started the next week and acted like nothing had happened."

"Did you ever tell Trey?" Bryan asked, bringing her back to the present.

She raised an eyebrow. "Right. Tell my brother his friend tried to rape me, so he could shoot him or at best beat up the richest boy in town and wind up in jail?" This time her voice dripped with biting sarcasm, and she didn't try to hide it.

" 'Course maybe if Trey'd been in a U.S. prison, he might not have wound up in a Mexican jail." She sighed. "G.o.d, that's just depressing as h.e.l.l."

"So you never pressed charges or reported this to anyone?"

She frowned at him in confusion. He was repeating himself, and she wasn't sure why. "No, I never told anyone. You are the first." She sneered at the joke that only she got. "But I learned not to be so d.a.m.n trusting. It was the most valuable part of my education." And destroyed her own reputation in the process.

The three boys had left her alone all that first week until after school on Friday. Then they'd surrounded her in the very crowded parking lot when they'd known Trey had been on the practice field. There they'd started to insult and hara.s.s her, calling her the most horrific names.

They'd drawn quite the crowd. But she'd stood on the tarry asphalt and taken the biggest chance of her life. When Bobby had tried to pull at her clothes again, she'd forced herself to laugh and ask loudly enough for their audience to hear if he thought he could get it up this time as opposed to last week, when he'd just run away.

Every student in the parking lot heard her taunt, and she would have found the look on Bobby's face comical if she hadn't been so scared her gamble would backfire. But it didn't. When they saw she wasn't intimidated, Bobby and his buddies backed down so fast, it made her head spin-especially when she started talking about their lack of "equipment." She'd been stunned at the effect her words had had, and she'd been adopting the same type of self-defense mechanism ever since.

After the levee incident, Sa.s.sy became known as the trash-talking daughter of the town wh.o.r.e at Springwater High School.

When Trey heard about the altercation in the parking lot, he completely misunderstood the reason behind it and a.s.sumed she really had fooled around with Bobby and his friends. It hurt like h.e.l.l that her brother jumped to that conclusion, but she never set him straight. After one very uncomfortable confrontation where Sa.s.sy told him in no uncertain terms to mind his own d.a.m.n business, Trey stayed out of it. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief that her brother and his future out of Springwater were safe.

Throughout the next three years in school, Sa.s.sy adopted an over-the-top s.e.xual persona to combat the whispered rumors and gossip. She learned when not to pull the tiger's tail with predator-like bullies, and she developed a radar for who could and couldn't be shut down with some well-timed, c.o.c.k-shriveling sarcasm.

To say the experience had made her skittish around men was putting it mildly. She didn't let men get close, period. The easiest way to keep them at arm's length was to shut them down with her ego-obliterating disdain when they got too close. That had come with its own downside over the years, but she kept that to herself.

Boys and men alike a.s.sumed she was easy and a tease because she talked like she was, but most stayed away from her because she was a ballbuster when it came to the things she'd say in front of anyone. She didn't date in college, and her p.r.i.c.kly personality kept colleagues at bay after graduation, too. Her verbal skills served her particularly well in the male-dominated newsroom.

She'd honed her self-defense weapon to a fine point. But there was no doubt that Bryan had her playing with fire where that was concerned, and there was that one little detail she hadn't shared.

In the past six months, she'd shocked herself with some of the outrageous things she'd said to him, and with Bryan she didn't always follow up her big talk with scoffing remarks. He threw her so off-kilter that instead of turning on the usual s.e.xual scorn, she played over-the-top Sa.s.sy closer and closer to the edge and its logical end.

She didn't have to be experienced to know that was a dangerous game. Even as she worried about protecting herself from her own insanity, she knew Bryan wouldn't purposely hurt her. But he could still break her heart without meaning to.

BRYAN STARED AT Sa.s.sy over their meal of Hot Pockets and canned corn, processing everything she'd just told him. Some stuff that had been happening between the two of them made sense now, but there were still a few things that didn't.

How Trey hadn't figured out what was up with Bobby Hughes, he'd never know. But Bryan hadn't been there to stop it from happening. So he sure as h.e.l.l couldn't blame anyone but himself.

When Bryan left Springwater after graduation, he left both Trey and their friendship in the dust, along with Sa.s.sy. He'd been so scared he was going to cross some line with her, Bryan hadn't recognized the potential difficulties he was leaving Sa.s.sy to wade through without him.

When he'd come back home from Afghanistan in such a mental funk, Trey hadn't said anything about his abrupt departure years before. No blame, no questions. He'd just stepped up and been Bryan's friend again.

As much resistance as he'd had to the idea before, now there was a whole new list of reasons Bryan couldn't be the guy who slept with Trey's little sister. That had some awful implications, especially since Bryan wasn't open to anything permanent.

Was he?

He wasn't so sure anymore and was swallowing a sip of coffee when Sa.s.sy said, "Okay, Hollywood, I showed you mine. Now you show me yours."

Her voice was light and teasing. The image was so vivid and unexpected after the story she'd just told, he choked on the coffee and practically inhaled the liquid straight up his nose.

Sa.s.sy raised an eyebrow. "So why do they call you Hollywood? You never told me."

He shook his head, still sputtering and coughing.

"It can't be that bad."

He swallowed hard, trying to clear the coffee from his lungs and nasal cavities. If he hadn't caught the expression in her eyes as he was having his coughing fit, the lilt in her voice might have had him thinking she was over the incident she'd just shared from her past. As it was, he was just grateful he'd seen her words for the diversion attempt they were. They'd certainly had the desired effect.

As such, he decided to let it go. She deserved a diversion after this.

She was staring at him now with her usual frank curiosity. "Now, you tell me. What happened to you in Afghanistan? I know something did. You didn't come back for your grandmother's funeral, but two months later you were home for good."

He closed his eyes. He didn't want to talk about this, but he supposed it was only fair. He'd much rather dwell on the I showed you mine, now you show me yours part of the conversation.

Not that he'd seen nearly as much of "hers" as he wanted. Not by a long shot. He'd love to see more of her . . . everything. But given what he'd just learned, he wondered if he ever would. One of her brother's supposed best friends had practically raped her. It seemed wrong for Bryan, another of Trey's friends, to be thinking of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her brains out.

Bryan knew this was a different situation. He was different. They were different. She was a grown woman, for one thing.

And if the price for making amends to her for past wrongs was laying his soul bare, he could do it. But that didn't mean he had to like it. It hurt too d.a.m.n much. He didn't want her feeling sorry for him or trying to fix him afterward, either.

"Hey, 'Hollywood.' It's no fair, not sharing after I spilled. Either tell me about your travels to the Middle East or tell me about your nickname."

Jesus. Was he really going to have to do this? He'd only talked to the counselor once at the VA, and that was because they'd insisted.

She was looking at him with an expectant gaze. He took a deep breath.

Tap, tap, tap. The knocking on the door was soft but persistent. He felt a ridiculous sense of relief as he released the breath he'd been holding.

It was Otis, standing on the stairs holding a ca.s.serole dish in his hands.

"Tilly had no idea if there was anything in the fridge and figured you two might be hungry. This is our leftover poppy-seed ca.s.serole from last night. It's all heated up and ready to eat."

Sa.s.sy came to stand beside Bryan and took the dish from the older man's grasp. Bryan asked him inside, longing to postpone the inevitable conversation to come with Sa.s.sy.

"No, thank you," the older man said. "You two get some rest now, you hear? Tilly said you'll be wanting to figure out transportation when you wake up. I can take you to the rental car place if you like."

"Yes, sir," said Sa.s.sy and Bryan simultaneously. Those deep-seated Southern manners of always agreeing with their elders automatically kicked in, along with a mutual anxiousness to not go to a rental agency.

Bryan thanked Otis again and shut the door. "Want some of this?" He glanced at Sa.s.sy's half-eaten sandwich.

"Yeah. I don't know when we'll get the chance later."

He served up the ca.s.serole and gave himself a mighty heaping as well.

Sa.s.sy was right. This was a reprieve. They'd better take it while they could.

"Now where were we?" she asked.

Chapter Twelve.

WHERE THE h.e.l.l were they?

The traitor sat in his office and twirled the letter opener as he drank his scotch. Fisher and the woman had been on the train, then after the wreck and explosion they'd vanished. Reports were unclear if they'd died in the crash and explosive aftermath or not. His men at the site reported that their IDs had been found, but no one had actually seen the bodies. And the traitor wouldn't trust anything that wasn't "eyes on" verification.

Fisher had proven himself cagey enough earlier in New York. According to all the intel he was receiving, the former Marine had become appropriately paranoid since arriving back from Africa. The AEGIS connection notwithstanding, IDs could be planted. And Bryan Fisher didn't strike him as a stupid man. So the traitor now had men on the scene checking it out.

How the h.e.l.l had they lost the woman to begin with? Sa.s.sy Smith and Jennifer Grayson were the only two left who could put this together. He needed them eliminated, yesterday. But first he had to find them.

Fortunately, he had the resources; time just wasn't one of them. Everything was coming to a head and in danger of unraveling. G.o.d, how could this have happened?

After ten years. Had it really been that long?

He'd flown under the radar until that ridiculous bust last year with the DEA and the snafu with Leland Hollis and the accountant Ellis Colton. Still, there had to be a way to stop it from falling apart.

He'd tried a couple of times. First with the accountant's bust, next the explosions at the Rivera compound in Mexico, then at the vet clinic in Antn Lizardo. He'd finally gone to the "nuclear option" with ordering the deaths of Ernesto Vega and Juan Santos. It was a shame Santos was dead, but that had been inevitable. The man knew too much and talked too much. Vega's death wasn't such a tragedy, but it had been a foregone conclusion, nonetheless.

The traitor still couldn't believe how quickly everything had gone to h.e.l.l in Dallas, Mexico, and even Africa, of all places. The men at AEGIS and their women were like cats with nine lives. But he was the Grim Reaper. No one could survive him.

His men in Kingstree would find Fisher and the woman. And if they weren't already dead, they would be soon.

Kingstree, South Carolina Sa.s.sY SAT AT the table, looking at Bryan expectantly.

"So where were we? Why did you come back from Afghanistan and boot the Marines? I thought that was your chosen career path. Your Gran sure thought so."

There was nothing quite like getting right down to it. And he hadn't missed the censure in her voice. There was so much she didn't know.

She narrowed her eyes as he stared at her. "Cat got your tongue? Personally, I would have gone for a completely different part of your anatomy."

He swallowed. G.o.d, she was doing it again. The woman really would say anything. She was barely five feet tall, yet she consistently shocked the h.e.l.l out of him. He studied her across the table a moment, letting himself linger on her slicked-back hair and oversized robe. She should have looked like a little girl; instead, she looked like an extraordinarily f.u.c.kable woman.

But he wasn't going there, not after what she'd just told him about Bobby Hughes and his buddies. Bryan wasn't going to be another one of Trey's friends taking advantage. At this point, he'd already done enough to mess with her head to last a lifetime. Sa.s.sy's brother was one of the only friends Bryan had left after Afghanistan.

Afghanistan. He really didn't want to go there, either, particularly with Sa.s.sy. He continued to stare, and as he did, she blinked and glanced away. He got the impression his gaze was making her uncomfortable.

Nah. It couldn't be. She was too bold. Was everything about the bad-girl act just a charade on her part? That hardly seemed possible, but it was an interesting idea.

She looked up again, and her eyes snapped with impatience. "So?" she asked.

He steeled himself and took a deep breath.

"I was in Force Recon, a Special Operations group from the Marines that integrated into MARSOC."

Her forehead wrinkled in confusion.

"MARSOC stands for United States Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. There are lots of acronyms involved, but it's probably easiest to think of this as Marine Corps Special Operations."

She nodded her understanding.

"My team was good." They'd been better than good. His team had been amazing. "We did exactly what the name implies, reconnaissance and intelligence. At the end of our third tour together, we were coming back from a mission that involved investigating heroin smuggling routes used by one of the more fickle Afghan tribal chieftains."

Bryan's team had figured out how smugglers were getting the drugs out of the country and had been able to shut down access to a major shipping lane in the Helmand Province. They hadn't shut down anything permanently, but what they'd done had slowed shipments significantly for several months. Hopefully, it had slowed the flow of money to Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants as well.

"We were waiting on transport back to base-talking and making plans for what we were going to do with our time off back home. We'd had a couple of CIA consultants and one DEA guy with us on the mission. At our extraction point, me and one of the other guys were asked to ride in the Jeep behind the main truck to make room for everyone."

Sa.s.sy watched him, her gaze never leaving his face. Instead of that making him feel self-conscious, he found himself wanting to tell her the story. He'd kept it bottled up for so long.

If he closed his eyes, he could still see the scene before him-hear the voices, feel the air, draw in the scent of the crisp morning. Afghanistan had smelled different, a difference he couldn't ever quite describe in words. The road was dusty, and the gray-colored grit covered his boots as he walked back to the Jeep with Bear Bennett. Everyone was shipping home the next day for some much-needed R&R. The men were laughing and talking, giving each other good-natured s.h.i.t as they spoke of plans to see their families and friends.

He and Bear climbed into the Jeep, joking about who would ride shotgun while they snapped on their seat belts. The larger truck ahead of them began moving forward. They were following behind, pa.s.sing a village boy leading a donkey loaded down with G.o.d knew what, and the boy gave them this look.

Suddenly Bryan knew that it was all about to go from sugar to s.h.i.t. But there was no time to react. Even as the thought registered, the explosion was happening. All in the blink of an eye, while the aftermath felt like a slow-motion nightmare.

One second he was looking at the boy with the donkey, thinking something seemed off. The next, everything disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. The concussion wave turned the Jeep end over end. Bryan came to in a ditch, broken up and still strapped in his seat.

Sa.s.sy watched him with unblinking intensity. He hadn't realized he'd said all that aloud, but he was hyperaware now.

"Everyone on the transport was dead-my teammates, the DEA and the CIA guys, our Jeep driver. Bear was in the back of the Jeep with a broken ankle and a blown-out knee. But he was conscious, and he pulled me out of the front seat before the fire spread to our vehicle. I couldn't walk. Could barely crawl. I would have died if he hadn't been there." He looked down at his half-eaten ca.s.serole.

He still couldn't wrap his head around why he'd survived. The men on that truck had had wives, kids, parents, girlfriends. Bryan had none of that. Not even a dog. His only relative, Gran, had died of congestive heart failure a few weeks before he'd gotten home after the bombing. He still wasn't over the pain of not being there for her.