Free On the Loose by Tara Janzen

Robert MacAllister III, and they were talking about him because the guy kept showing up in her life. The
Ocean
article was four years old, which meant Honey had held on to a boyfriend twice as long as Smith had held on to a wife, which galled the hell out of him, plus she was seeing all those other men on the side.
    â€œI own some of that underwear.”
    â€œWell, that’s very nice,” she said, shifting her attention back to her book and snapping over another page. “It’s very high quality, more expensive, but worth it.”
    And wasn’t that interesting—he’d actually shocked himself with his own idiocy. Where had that come from? About the underwear?
    â€œMy girlfriend bought it for me.” And that wasn’t much of a save. Not really.
    She snapped another page over in her book, but didn’t comment.
    He didn’t blame her. Some things didn’t deserve conversation—his underwear being a prime example.
    Dammit
. Smith had done nothing but think about Honey for four damn months, and now that he was sitting right next to her, the last damn place he would have ever expected to be when they’d dragged him out of his Lima hotel room in the middle of the night and given him this damn mission, the very last, he was overthinking the situation and letting his imagination get the better of him.
    And he was angry.
    Mostly at himself for thinking about her for four damn months. San Luis should have been a one-night stand, not an obsession. They had nothing in common.
    And yet, here they were again, off on some wild-ass adventure.
Geezus,
it felt like fate, but he wasn’t buying goddamn fate. Free will, plain and simple, was the only thing he believed in. Give him free will and a .45, and he’d take care of himself, thank you.
    But his free will had been usurped at three A.M. , and he was stuck with Honey, and a briefcase, and a whole boatload of useless information that was none of his business.
    Shakespeare in the nude.
Geezus.
    Smith shifted in his seat, and stared out the window, and let another mile roll by before he finally gave in to what had really been sticking in his craw for the last four months—dammit.
    â€œI owe you an apology.”
    His admission was met with silence.
    â€œFor what?” Honey asked after a moment.
    He glanced in her direction and found her watching him with a mixture of wariness and curiosity. He didn’t blame her for the wariness. Anyone with any brains used at least a modicum of caution when dealing with him.
    â€œI was a little rough on you that night in San Luis.”
    Her eyebrow went up again, and sure enough, the blush returned.
    He almost grinned. He hadn’t meant it like that.
    â€œI mean with tossing you into my room and taking your weapon, and just generally...well...”
    â€œJust generally bossing me around and threatening to break my neck?”
    â€œYeah.”
Christ
. He had threatened to snap her neck. He’d kind of forgotten about that part. “I’m sorry. Sorry if I hurt you.”
    â€œI’m not,” she said, shifting her attention back to her book, but without flipping any more pages. “I was in over my head, Smith, way over, and if you hadn’t tossed me into your room, I probably wouldn’t have made it through the night. I don’t know who those men were, but I think you do, and I think they’re a lot scarier than Diego Garcia.”
    She had that part right. Tony Royce’s guys had all been handpicked from the scum of the earth, chosen for their brutality and sociopathic tendencies. She wouldn’t have lasted four hours in their hands, and God forbid something should have happened to her like what had happened to Smith’s friend and SDF partner, Red Dog.
    The thought sent an unnerving chill down his spine.
    Yeah, he’d been rough—expedient, getting the job done the best way he knew how—and yeah, she’d gotten a little