Free To the Edge by Cindy Gerard Page B

threats had been nothing compared to the past couple of hours. Everything that had transpired—starting with seeing Garrett through the fog in her bathroom mirror—was too outrageous to even contemplate, let alone quantify. And yet here she was ... smelling of stale beer and cigarette smoke, keeping her eyes peeled for the bikers who had hopped on their hogs and tried to follow them, not to mention there was a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger bleeding all over the backseat, no matter that he'd been ordered not to.
    "Is he all right?" she asked, concerned in spite of herself. "Does he need to go to a hospital or something?"
    Garrett glanced in the rearview mirror. "How you doing, Wilson?"
    "Haven't felt this good since Moby Dick was a freaking minnow, man. Hooah!"
    Garrett let out a deep sigh that pretty much stated it all: We were not having fun. "What time does your flight leave?"
    Plowboy mumbled a time.
    Garrett checked his watch, swore, and turned on the Mustang's afterburners.
     
    "The woman—she really heats your pool, huh, No?"
    It was o-two hundred hours. They were standing at the curb by the terminal. Nolan gave Plowboy a look that said, None of your business, then glanced at the woman in question, who was less than a yard away, waiting in the car with the windows rolled down.
    He suspected Jillian was just a tad shocky. And yeah, as the young Ranger put it, she heated his pool—which royally pissed him off. So did the kernel of tenderness he felt for her as she sat there, her eyes glazed, her expression stalled somewhere between denial and disbelief.
    Wilson laughed, then winced at the pain from his split lip.
    "Good luck with that. And hey—thanks for hauling my ass outta there."
    "Yeah. Make sure you lose my cell number."
    Another broad, wincing grin. "Like old times, huh?"
    Yeah, Nolan thought grimly. It had been like old times.
    He hadn't wanted to admit it, but he'd enjoyed it. The adrenaline rush. Saving one of his boys. He'd enjoyed it a little too much. Since Iraq, he'd been edgy as hell, always on the lookout for bad guys. When he hadn't been dead drunk, the switch had been stuck in the on position. Facing a few out-of-shape bikers with ugly attitudes was like flipping a release valve after months of deadly face-offs with Ba'ath Party resistance and fedayeen armed with AK-47s and RPG launchers who lived to take out anyone in a U.S. military uniform.
    "We miss you, No," Plowboy added, breaking into Nolan's thoughts. His expression was sober now. "Bat... it's not the same. Nothing's the same. Except the army bullshit. That never changes."
    Silence stretched like the long shadows cast by the airport parking security lights. Nolan looked at his feet, then looked beyond Jason's expectant eyes toward the terminal. It was almost empty. As empty as he suddenly felt.
    He had to ask. "How's Sara and her boys?"
    Plowboy looked very young suddenly, looked every bit the boy he really was instead of the man the army and Iraq had made of him.
    "Kids are doin' OK, I guess. They're in counseling," he said with a shrug. "Sara's folks are there now. Will's, too. Doing what they can, ya know. She's out of the hospital. They say there's still hope that she'll walk... and everything." He let out a weary breath. "You couldn't have stopped it, man."
    Nolan swallowed. He could have. He should have. He was supposed to have stopped it. He was supposed to take care of his men. Keep everyone safe. Including Will. But Will was dead. And Sara was a widow ... and whether she walked or not, her life would never be the same again.
    "Something just snapped in him, you know?" Plowboy continued. "Something—"
    Nolan couldn't stand it anymore. "Look, you're going to miss your flight."
    His voice was as rigid as his posture, and when Plowboy just stood there, looking as bleak as the night in his torn shirt and with blood smearing his face, Nolan forced a smile.
    "Christ, you're a wreck. Make sure you hit the head." He shoved the duffel into the