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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Fuck, nothing was going right.

Casper’s mouth drew down into a scowl, and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Shit had gone sideways on a mission in northern Syria, and he and his fellow Night Stalkers were needed, stat.

There were pockets of ISIS operatives in the area, and they were proving especially proficient at targeting the choppers other Night Stalkers were using, shuttling special forces troops in and out of drop zones.

More air power was needed to get boots on the ground to take out the insurgents before they succeeded in actually shooting down one or more of the choppers.

And that meant instead of in a week, his team was being deployed in two days.

Casper’s plan to take Laryn on a date was disappearing in a puff of smoke, which irritated him beyond belief. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t still take her somewhere, but it probably wouldn’t be as epic as he’d hoped. The last thing he wanted was anything run-of-the-mill, but it seemed likely.

Because no way was he waiting. Now that he’d made the decision to take her out, he didn’t want a deployment to stand in the way.

He wanted to make sure the woman knew how important she was to him before they left.

And things would be different for this deployment than they’d been in the past. No more would Laryn be on her own onboard the ship.

He’d never given much thought to how she’d spent her time on the carriers, but now he had an innate desire to make sure she was sleeping all right, eating healthy meals, and taking care of herself in what could be a high-stress environment.

It was a huge switch, but one that felt right.

Of course, she might not want him to be so up in her business.

Time would tell, but a good gauge of how things might go in the future would be how their first date went.

Was she the kind of woman who liked or hated public displays of affection?

Would she let him hold her hand? Or let him pay without arguing?

One area where he had no doubts about their compatibility was physically.

He couldn’t remember their kisses without getting hard.

And how soothing just being next to her in bed had been.

Yes, he enjoyed sex as much as the next man, but after this morning, he appreciated simply being with someone he could trust more than he expected.

“Anyone have any questions?” the colonel asked.

Casper had a ton of them, but his friends beat him to the punch and asked everything that was swirling around in his head.

They’d already learned about the current conflict that had caused the uptick in ISIS activity, and what the special forces teams were doing in the area.

They went over the terrain, how the Taurus Mountains served as a kind of barrier between Syria and Turkey, extending all the way to Iraq, both helping and hindering the missions of the SEALs and Delta Force operatives on the ground.

ISIS was beginning to make this area a new stronghold, and they had many hideouts and knew the territory well.

The mountains made the Night Stalkers necessary, as their specialty was flying over and through terrain that regular pilots would have second thoughts about tackling… especially in the dark.

The missions would be dangerous as hell, but Casper wasn’t worried. He and his team could handle it.

The colonel told Pyro when he asked that, yes, Laryn and a small handpicked team of mechanics would be accompanying them. Especially since Casper’s chopper was going into combat for the first time.

Casper hadn’t thought there was a chance she wouldn’t be coming, which was probably stupid of him.

Just because he wanted her there, and just because she usually accompanied them, that didn’t mean she always would.

There had been times when she’d stayed behind.

But since she’d been told previously that she’d be deployed on their next mission, he’d just assumed that would still be the case.

He was very glad that she’d be safe on the naval destroyer though.

He hadn’t thought much about her safety in the past, much to his embarrassment, but now that he was interested in her as more than simply his mechanic, his mind couldn’t help but turn to her safety.

The thought of her on the front lines made him want to puke.

She had some military training from when she was in the Army, but nothing like what he and the other pilots saw when they were on missions.

Thank God that wasn’t a concern. Especially since, in a massive coincidence, they were headed into Turkey—where Altan Osman was from.

The meeting broke up, and Casper was anxious to see Laryn. But he sighed, knowing he had more work to do first.

“You talk to Tex?” Edge asked, after the meeting with the colonel ended and as they walked down the hall toward the next conference room, to start studying maps of the area where they’d be flying.

Yes, the instruments on their choppers were top of the line and they relied on them when they were flying, but nothing beat having a good mental picture of the major topographical obstacles beforehand.

“Yeah. He’s going to look into Osman. But he’s got some other things on his plate before he can get to it,” Casper told his friend, the others listening in.

“Might not be a bad thing that we’re headed out in two days instead of a week,” Chaos mused.

“Yeah, if that asshole has plans to try to intimidate Laryn here on her home turf, he’ll have to wait until we get back,” Obi-Wan added.

“And by then, hopefully Tex will have gotten more intel on the man so we know if he’s a threat or not,” Buck said thoughtfully.

Casper was more than relieved that his friends were on the same page regarding Laryn’s protection. They’d already agreed with him that the Turkish contractor was a concern, but after she’d stepped in to protect him from Bitchy Barb? They were now all-in on watching over Laryn.

“I’d like to see him try to fuck with her. He’ll find out what having six Night Stalkers on his ass feels like,” Pyro muttered.

The situation wasn’t exactly humorous, but Casper found himself smiling anyway.

Chaos held open the door for everyone and they filed into the conference room.

Casper’s smile faded as he took in the uncomfortable chairs he and his friends would be spending the next several hours in.

They had a lot of work to do, and not a lot of time in which to do it.

Sparing another thought for Laryn, he figured she’d be just as busy.

Once she’d learned they were leaving in two days rather than a week, she’d probably started hustling to make sure her tools were ready for transport.

Yes, there were tools onboard the destroyer, but he knew from experience that Laryn traveled with her own set of customized instruments.

She’d also have her own meetings to attend with those on her staff who’d be traveling with them.

They’d be briefed on the situation and atmosphere the pilots would be flying into, but not the nitty-gritty details.

Laryn had a top-secret clearance, but that didn’t mean she was privy to everything that happened on the missions he and his fellow pilots participated in.

Sitting with a sigh, Casper and the others began to pull the appropriate maps out of the large folders that had been delivered to the conference room while they’d been meeting with the colonel.

The day had already been long, and it would just get longer.

But unlike on any other workday, he had something to look forward to when he was done here at the naval base.

Laryn. Seeing her and talking to her. It made the long-ass day a little more bearable.

Looking at her watch, Laryn saw it was eight o’clock. The day had flown by. It began when she’d arrived to find the MH-60 had already been loaded for transport, and, in fact, was already gone from the hangar, because the timeline for deployment had been moved up by five days.

The amount of work she had to get done made her day much more stressful than she’d hoped. She’d had no time to think about Altan, other jobs, if the workers who were in charge of transporting the MH-60 had followed every protocol to make sure nothing happened to it in transit, or even Tate.

She had meetings with the soldiers and fellow mechanics who’d be traveling to the naval destroyer with her, and made sure their paperwork was in order.

Things like their DD Form 93—Record of Emergency Data—family care plans, making sure their beneficiaries were all up to date, as well as their wills.

For some people, it was a depressing part of the job…

making sure that if the worst happened while deployed, their loved ones would be taken care of.

But for Laryn, it wasn’t a big deal an ymore.

Mostly because she didn’t have family herself, and her beneficiary had always been a beagle rescue group she’d volunteered with at her previous duty station back at Fort Bragg, which had been renamed Fort Liberty since she’d been there.

But now that she had a chance to breathe, to think, she realized she was starving.

Lunch had been some chips and a candy bar from the vending machine.

She was grubby and needed a shower in the worst way.

Her coveralls were streaked with grease from taking time out to troubleshoot some engine issues on an MH-47 Chinook.

A much bigger chopper than the Blackhawk Tate flew, it was used for longer missions and could carry a ton of cargo, including lifting extremely heavy loads…

like the iconic story about the Night Stalkers stealing an abandoned Libyan attack helicopter in the late eighties during a sandstorm.

Laryn stood at the side of the hangar for a moment, closing her eyes as she tried to decide what to do. Wait to get home to make something to eat? Stop and grab fast food? Forget food altogether and head home and crash?