Page 5

Chay drew a deep breath. “Sorry.”

“You’d better be sorry.”

Her gaze was assessing. A second passed. Then she tossed her head. “Well, okay. I mean, you want to buy me a drink…” She smiled, leaned in. Her perfume engulfed him.

“We can start over. How’s that?”

“That’s…” He took another long breath. “The thing is…Sorry. Not tonight.”

The brunette looked at him as if he’d spoken in Sanskrit.

Shit.

“What I mean is, thanks for the offer…”

Double shit. Now she was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“Look,” he said, “I’m just not into this tonight…”

Jesus H. Christ.

“Some other time,” he said, and she straightened up, slapped her hands on her hips and gave him a look that he figured was pretty much the same as the one Medusa had wanted to give Perseus.

“Not even in your dreams,” she said, and then, probably for good measure, she leaned in again. “I was just trying to do my patriotic duty. Otherwise, why would I even talk to an idiot whose cock is probably the size of a fruit fly?”

She turned on her heel and flounced away.

Chay tried to laugh. At himself, for being the idiot she’d called him even though she was wrong about the size of his cock.

He’d never had any complaints whatsoever about that.

Yeah, but he couldn’t laugh. Couldn’t even smile.

Chay closed his eyes.

Maybe it was time to get out of here.

Maguire and Sanchez had said they’d meet him, but they’d understand. What he needed was some air. A long walk on the beach. Maybe he’d shuck his clothes and head into the surf. The Pacific was cold at night. The surf was rough. For all he knew, maybe that was what he needed. Cold air. Rough water. Something, anything to empty his head of that fucking meadow.

“Dude, if you’re an ad for meditation, you are doin’ one shitty job.”

Chay’s eyes flew open. He shot to his feet, hands fisted, adrenaline pounding, all six feet two inches of him ready, hell, eager for a fight…

“Hey. Olivieri. Take it easy, man. It’s me.”

Chay shook his head—and brought into focus the face of his oldest friend, his best buddy, his blood brother, Tanner Akecheta.

“Akecheta?”

Tanner, who he hadn’t seen since that wedding months ago, grinned.

“Not unless you know some other dude who’d be dumb enough to say hello to somebody with an expression like yours on his face.”

For a couple of seconds, Chay kept on staring. Then he grinned.

“Fuck,” he said, and the men grabbed each other in the kind of embrace that would have pleased a pair of male grizzlies. “Dude,” he said, when they finally stepped apart, “what are you doin’ here? Why aren’t you back home in South Dakota, chasing cows or horses or whatever it is you do on that ranch of yours?”

“You know damn well what I do, Olivieri, because you did enough of it when we were growing up. Here’s a better question. What are you doing here?”