Free Targeted (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 2) by Kaylea Cross

months ago, but he had no clue how to even relate to someone like Zoe.
    The confusion part was compounded when he found himself looking at her without meaning to, or watching her for longer than was considered polite. She’d caught him doing it a few times too, but had never called him on it. Which was good. She wasn’t his type, not even close, and checking her out made him feel creepy considering she was like Tuck’s little sister rather than his cousin.
    “Okay, and what about you?” she asked him now. “How are you doing?”
    Huh? “Fine.” Was there some deeper meaning she was after that he was missing?
    “Yeah? Work’s going okay? I know they push you guys really hard. Must be exhausting sometimes. I bet some days you’d love to take off and just lie on a beach someplace.”
    “No. I love my job.”
    “I know, but you must still get tired.”
    He shrugged. They were all tired and usually beat up to some extent, but they’d known what they were signing up for when they first applied. Almost all of them had come from a Spec Ops or at least some sort of military background. The job was demanding and exhausting, but none of them would have had it any other way. Just like with the SEAL Teams it was an honor and a privilege to make, let alone to serve on, the HRT.
    A blissful few moments of silence passed before she spoke again.
    “Does it hurt?”
    He looked over at her. She was studying him with an openly curious expression on her face. He bit back a sigh. “Does what hurt?”
    “Having that bug up your ass.”
    His teeth clacked together as he jerked his head back around to look at the road. He clenched his jaw and squeezed the steering wheel until his knuckles were white, then stole another glance at the clock. T minus fifty minutes. He could totally do this.
    “Okay, that wasn’t very nice of me, especially when you’re doing me a favor by picking me up and taking me to Celida’s, but you do realize I’m not the enemy, right?”
    He didn’t answer, mostly because right now he didn’t think he could open his mouth and say something nice.
    Zoe didn’t seem to care. “Look, Tuck told me about your divorce, but I don’t think you’re aware that I knew your ex.”
    It surprised him so much that he glanced over at her again. “How?”
    She raised her eyebrows. “How do you think?”
    Duh, he reminded himself, she’d practiced family law in Shreveport, where his ex-wife was from and where they’d been married. It was also where he’d filed for the divorce.
    “Did you work on our case?” His face started to heat at the thought. There was shit in those legal documents that he didn’t want anyone to know about other than his superiors, who’d been apprised of everything because they’d had to be. And a good thing, too, since they’d saved his ass by fighting to keep him on the team after he’d been arrested. Without Tuck and DeLuca having his back at the time, his career—his life—would’ve been over.
    “No,” she said and he relaxed. Even if they didn’t know each other much, he didn’t want Zoe to form an opinion of him based on what was in those documents.
    Because anyone who read them without knowing him would either judge or be afraid of him. Zoe didn’t seem to do either of those things, and he was surprisingly relieved about that.
    “She tried to retain me for her legal counsel initially but after meeting with her a few times I refused representation. I knew after two hours that she was manipulative and mentally ill, not to mention a pathological liar.”
    Holy shit.
    Clay was too stunned by that shockingly accurate summation to reply. Barely anyone had been able to see any of that in Eve—least of all him, until it was too late—not even her own parents. Only his closest friends had believed him, and a few of them only after accidentally witnessing one of her episodes when they’d dropped by for an unannounced visit. He wouldn’t soon forget that humiliating