Page 27

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Pressing her lips together in irritation, hoping against hope it wasn’t her boss or someone else needing her to take a “quick look” at something for them, she pulled it out and looked down at the screen.

Seeing Tate’s name made her heart beat hard in her chest for reasons other than annoyance.

He’d sent her a couple of texts during the day, simply to check in.

He’d told her that he’d called his friend Tex, who’d work on gathering intel on Altan.

He also checked to make sure she was all right with them leaving sooner rather than later—not that he could’ve done anything if she wasn’t okay with that, but she appreciated him thinking about her.

“Hey,” she said as she answered the phone.

“I’m going to be at the hangar in two minutes. You still there?” he asked.

He sounded irritated for some reason. At her ?

Because she was still working? Laryn’s back straightened.

Well, tough shit if he was upset. She had a job to do, just as he did, and just because they’d shared something pretty intimate the night before…

well, that morning…didn’t mean he could start running her life.

“I was just leaving,” she told him curtly.

“Perfect. If you wait for me, I’ll take you home.”

“I need my car,” she protested.

“Why?”

“Because. I need to get back here early in the morning, since we’re leaving the day after tomorrow. There’s still a ton of stuff I have to do. My work around here hasn’t stopped just because I’m being deployed.”

“Right. I understand that. I’m in the same boat.” His tone was softer now. Less abrupt. “I meant, why do you need your car if we’re going to the same place and both coming back to work at the ass-crack of dawn in the morning to continue preparations to head out?”

Laryn’s mind drew a blank. She’d completely forgotten that he’d insisted he’d be staying with her, just in case Altan tried any funny business.

Which was hilarious, because normally she wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about him being in her apartment, especially after sleeping next to him all night the previous evening. Well…this morning.

Her brain felt foggy. With lack of sleep, with hunger, and with everything she still needed to do swirling around in it.

“Hold on to your arguments…I’ll be there in a second and we can discuss face-to-face.”

The phone went dead in her ear, and at any other time, with any other person, she probably would’ve been extremely irritated he’d hung up on her.

But she preferred to talk about him staying over in person.

He needed to know that she could take care of herself.

Had been for a long time now. She didn’t need him to protect her as if she was some damsel in distress.

Her dad had raised her to be confident and independent.

She didn’t want anyone swooping in on a white horse to save the day.

In fact, the way she was feeling right now—on edge, confused about where she and Tate stood with each other, hopeful yet skeptical that he’d somehow, after one night, decided he wanted to go out with her when he’d practically ignored her for years before—she hoped some bad guy dared to break into her apartment to try to “convince” her to take the job in Turkey.

She’d bash his head in with the giant wrench she kept in the apartment for that exact purpose.

“You look fierce. What are you thinking?” Tate asked as he entered the hangar from the open side door.

“I don’t need a man,” Laryn blurted.

“Okay.”

“And I don’t need you to babysit me. Because I can take care of myself.”

“I know.”

In a much less defensive tone, she said, “I don’t know what you want from me.”

Tate walked into her personal space and simply pulled her into a bear hug…which felt amazing.

Laryn closed her eyes and sagged into him. She was at the end of her rope for the day, and as much as she wanted to be the tough woman her father had raised, who needed nothing and no one, the truth was…this man was her weakness. And she was so damn tired. And hungry .

“I didn’t get a proper lunch today. I’m assuming you didn’t either, because we’re a lot alike.

We’ve both been on the go, go, go today.

So what do I want from you? Right now, I want to feed you.

Then I want to take you home and tuck you into bed and stay nearby, so you can rest peacefully, knowing if anyone dares try to use nefarious means to force you to work for them, they’ll have to get through me first. I know you’re independent and you can take care of yourself.

This isn’t about that. It’s just taken me too damn long to get my head out of my ass and see what was right in front of my face, and now that I have, I want to see if two people who are a lot alike can make a go of things. ”

Everything he said, she’d dreamed of him saying to her. Resisting the urge to blurt out, “Yes!” she lifted her head, and instead sighed, “I am hungry.”

“Yeah, me too,” he said with a grin. “It’s not ideal, and not what I wanted, but how about we go on that date I promised you?”

“Now?”

“Sure. Why not? The guys and I usually go out the night before we’re deployed, if we have enough advance notice. It’s kind of our last hurrah…just in case. It’s a little morbid, but we’re nothing if not practical. We all know how short life can be.”

Laryn smacked him on the shoulder. “Don’t say that!” she exclaimed.

Tate shrugged. “It’s true. We like to go out, not talk shop, and enjoy each other’s company one last time before we deploy. You’ll see, it’s not morbid at all. It’s more a celebration of friendship.”

“I’ll see?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

“Yeah, because you’ll be joining us if we’re able to go out tomorrow. It’ll depend on how late we get out of here. But that leaves tonight for me to take you on a date, just the two of us. What do you say?”

Laryn suddenly felt a lot less tired. Then she frowned and looked down at herself. “I’m a mess.”

“You are. And it’s adorable.”

She scrunched her nose. “No, it’s not. I smell like oil and grease. And I look like I’ve been crawling around on the floor, which I kind of have.”

“I do admit that I like the vanilla cookie smell better, but this is us,” he said with a small shrug.

“You in your coveralls. Me in my flight suit. Wrinkled. Dirty. But still standing. Besides, no one is going to look twice at us where I want to take you. We aren’t exactly going to a five-star restaurant or anything.

Not this late, after such a long day…although I do want to splurge and do that with you at some point.

But we don’t have the time before we head out to the Middle East.”

“Where are we going? You don’t even know what I like.”

“Salmich’s Burgers and Hoagies.”

Laryn’s mouth immediately started watering. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Why? You been there?”

“I love that place!” she exclaimed happily. “The hoagies are huge and so good!”

Tate grinned. “Awesome. So you’ll let me drive and take you out to eat, and then bring you back to your place and spend the night?”

“Sounds like you’ve got the evening all planned, stud,” Laryn teased.

To her amazement, Tate blushed. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he rushed to assure her.

“All I meant was, you’ll let me stay? On the couch?

Tex will work on getting me the info I requested about Osman, but he can’t get to it immediately, and I don’t want to take any chances with your safety. ”

Laryn studied him for a moment. Then she nodded.

She was too tired to argue about him staying the night.

Besides…she would feel safer with him there.

She still wasn’t convinced Altan would do anything, that he had the contacts to harass her from the other side of the world, but when she thought about how she’d felt after he’d threatened her over the phone, she decided it wasn’t exactly a hardship to have the man she’d had a crush on for years stay the night.

“Good. Come on, let’s get out of here before someone finds us and asks just ‘one more question.’”

Laryn chuckled as he grabbed her hand and practically dragged her toward the door. “You get that too?” she asked.

“All the freaking time,” he muttered .

It didn’t take long for them to get to his Taurus, and he was pulling out almost before she had her seat belt buckled.

The drive to Salmich’s didn’t take too long at this time of night.

They easily found a parking space in the small lot next to the hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

It wasn’t too far from her apartment complex, and was, in fact, on the same street, albeit blocks to the east from where she was.

They easily got a table inside and Laryn didn’t even bother picking up the menu, she knew exactly what she was going to get…what she got every time. She was a creature of habit, and when the food was as good as it was, why not?

“I take it you know what you want?” Tate said with a chuckle.

“Yeah.”

He took a moment to look over the menu and by the time the waitress stopped by their table with water, they were both ready to order.

“I’d like the Chicken in the Grass hoagie with extra cheese, please. Oh, and a side of diablo fries.”

“And for you?” the waitress asked, smiling at Tate.

“Jalapenos Popper Burger for me.”

After the waitress left, Tate grinned at Laryn. “I was going to ask if you like spicy food, but since you ordered the diablo fries, that answers my question. Are those for us to share?”

Laryn pretended to think about it for a moment. “I guess,” she sighed.

They talked about nothing in particular until their food came, which was surprisingly quick, but considering the time, they were probably anxious to serve the food and close up.

Laryn tucked into her sandwich as soon as it arrived and closed her eyes with ecstasy after the first bite.

“Good?” he asked.

When she opened her eyes, she saw he was staring at her with a look she couldn’t interpret. “So good,” she said on a moan.