Days later, at the outdoor firing range, the scene at the wedding had still niggled at him. Matt adjusted himself on the bench rest, MK11 steady in his hands. “You ever think about doing something different?”
Teddy refilled the ammo clip of his own weapon. “I thought this was different.”
“I mean with your life,” Matt said, lining up his target, his rifle a natural extension of his arm.
“Look around.” Teddy raised his hand to the open, sunny range, the men sitting in groups, checking weapons and talking women. He grinned. “This is our life, dude. Best damn one there is.”
Matt smiled. It was pretty sweet, and they’d worked damn hard to get here, but unlike his friend, who’d come from nothing and no one, Matt knew there was more.
T laughed. “What are you gonna do? Hang up your rifle for a hammer?”
The guys stood off to the side either cheering or taunting, depending on which way they’d bet. With his eye to the scope, Matt sighted the target eight hundred yards out. He took a breath, blew it out, and pulled the trigger.
His third shot hit dead center. Decker, Chappers, and Rocky stood and exchanged money.
“Damn, bro. Can’t do that with a hammer. And thank you, Mount McKinney. You just won me fifty bucks.”
Matt laughed and shook his head. “Idiot. I told you to bet a hundred.”
Three weeks later he’d been signed, sealed, delivered, and halfway to the other side of the world.
Matt rested his arms on the railing and looked down at the people milling about like ants on the beach. A bright blue umbrella stood in the same place he’d seen Jack yesterday. He sipped his soda. The sun beat down, the walls of his balcony blocking any breeze.
As always, it came suddenly. The air around him became stagnant. Oppressive. Suffocating. And he was back in the South American jungle. The diabolical fuck they hunted dealt in anything that made money, notorious for taking hostages and using extreme torture during negotiations just for the pleasure of it. It was his team’s job to get the hostages out while they still had all their body parts.
Extraction affirmative. He looked over at T, face smeared with black paint, same as his. Hot, soaked with sweat, edgy. They’d waited days for just the right moment. And it was now.
Time and memories jerked in his mind. Thick smoke squeezed his lungs. Shots. Screams. Blood. Don’t quit.
Matt jumped at the sound of the aluminum can strangled in his hand. Fuck. He stared as the cool liquid ran down his arm and dripped from his skin to the tiled balcony floor. For the past three days he’d craved silence; now he couldn’t stand it. Not the quiet or the static in his head.
Building a sand castle with a five-year-old sounded like a damn good idea.
Chapter 4
“Mom, do you think Matt’s already there?” Jack asked.
Abby led her crew down the long weathered boardwalk past waving sea oats and blowing sand dunes. “I don’t know, honey.” And that made one hundred and one times Jack had mentioned Matt since they’d left the pool.
“Do you think he’ll be able to find us?”
“I’m sure he will if he wants to.”
Jack frowned. “Why wouldn’t he want to?”
Because people didn’t always mean what they say. “I meant if he can. I’m sure he’ll come if he can.”
“I want to go to the pool with Matt,” Gracie said.
“We’ll go back to the pool tomorrow.”
“With Matt?”
“I don’t know, Gracie.”
“Don’t you like Matt, Mommy?”
Abby let out a long breath, not wanting to snap but weary of the questions. “Sure I do.” But I’m smart enough to stop there.
Thankfully they reached the end of the boardwalk and the kids hit the sand at a run. She followed and dropped their bags under the umbrella, the one Jack had so carefully described.
She spread towels, then picked up the mesh bag of sand toys. “Let’s dump these out and see what we’ve got,” she said, pulling at the drawstring top. No luck. She strained against the plastic, criminal-strength zip tie locking in the toys. Seriously? Who packed scissors in their beach bag?
Jack dropped to the sand, painting on his best frown. “I’m waiting for Matt.”
“No, you’re not.” They were not waiting on Matt or anyone else.
She pulled on the bag again.
“We need him,” Jack said. “He could open it and he knows how to build a castle.”
“We don’t need”—she strained against the unbreakable plastic—“any…help.”
Okay. Cleansing breath. Count to ten.
“You know what? We don’t need these. Let’s just look at the picture.”
Gracie placed an already gritty hand on her shoulder. “Will our castle look like that, Mommy?”
Abby studied the design depicted on the bag. No way had the children in the picture built that. Probably wasn’t even made with sand. “Nope. Ours will be better.”
Fifteen minutes and twenty loads of sand and water later, she had a giant, crumbling mess. Charlie took another roll down the short incline, coating himself like a piece of Shake ’n Bake chicken. Gracie and Jack inched closer and closer to the water, as if she wouldn’t see them. At least Annie stuck with her.
Jack’s head shot up. “Matt! You came.”
Abby looked up and there he was, walking straight toward her. Oh, Lord. He wore the same navy-blue swim trunks that hung almost to his knees and a plain white T-shirt. The blessed fabric accentuated every ridge and valley of his sculpted chest.