Free Hard as It Gets by Laura Kaye Page A

eased onto a stool at the bar, her words quieting some of the bullshit in his head. “Yeah?”
    “Yes, they’re awesome. So, thank you.”
    Side by side, they made their sandwiches—him two, her one—and then she took a bite.
    Her eyes flew wide. “Mmm. This is so good. This isn’t just Manwich sauce, is it?”
    Manwich? “Hell, no. How would it be my specialty if all I’d done was open a can?”
    Her laughter was full and deep, easing the tension in his shoulders. She returned her sandwich to her plate as her humor turned into an outright belly laugh and she covered her mouth with her napkin. “Sorry,” she finally said. “Didn’t mean to insult the chef.”
    Warm satisfaction flowed through him at her obvious enjoyment of what he’d made. No need for her to know it was one of about four things he could cook. “Manwich.” He shook his head and took a bite.
    “Oh, come on. Manwich is good. I make Manwiches.”
    “Now you’re just being difficult.”
    She laughed again, just like he’d hoped she would, and, oddly, he felt it right in the middle of his chest. Now this, this was what he’d been hoping to do for her when he’d offered to make her dinner in the first place. Put her at ease. Take her mind off her problems. If he could just keep a lid on his inner asshole, though knowing who her father was taunted that motherfucker like nobody’s business.
    Taking another bite, he glanced her way. And found her sideways gaze focused on his arm, where a band of ink circled his bicep. Six soldiers in black silhouette connected by the dark ground on which they walked. One soldier for each of the men—each of the brothers —he’d lost in what had been an ambush meant to kill the whole team of twelve. Hindsight was always fucking twenty-twenty. Now when he replayed that day in his head, the setup was so damn obvious that he never failed to wake up in a cold sweat, yelling at his dream self not to go forward. But that ship had sailed and crashed on the rocks of misguided trust. Later, he’d gotten the tat. A small way to commemorate those who had gone before him, who had died while he’d lived. His gut rolled.
    Those baby blues lifted to look at his face, a furrow marring her brow, then cut away again. “So, um, do you have any idea why Charlie might’ve thought I should come to you for help?” She sat the uneaten half of her sandwich down and shifted in the seat toward him.
    “No. I was going to ask you the same thing.”
    She sighed. “He told me almost nothing, which is my own fault.”
    The sadness in her eyes filled him with the urge to make this all better. No way it was that simple, though. “Why don’t you tell me everything from the beginning.”
    “Well, I mentioned that Charlie is a computer security consultant. He got into that by being a hacker. A really good one, apparently. He mostly stays on the right side of the law these days, but because he’s played on the wrong side and has seen things people aren’t generally supposed to see, he’s prone to conspiracy theories.”
    “Probably part of the job description.”
    She twisted her napkin and nodded. “Probably. Lately, we’d only been communicating through this online chat program he created. He wouldn’t talk on the phone, and he hadn’t been staying at his house. Last week, we had a fight because he started in on my father, how he wasn’t the man I thought he was, that he’d found something that proved it. This wasn’t new ground for Charlie. He and Dad didn’t get along, and—”
    “Why? If you don’t mind my asking.” All of this made Rixey’s instincts prickle with awareness. What the hell did Charlie find? Given the trouble the Army had gone to prettying up Merritt’s story, Nick was surprised to think they’d missed a loose end somewhere. Was it possible that trouble had followed the colonel’s casket home from Afghanistan?
    Becca cut her glance to him, her expression wary. “Charlie’s gay. Dad didn’t react