“I can get us a round,” Marcus offered, rising, but I was already out of my seat and headed toward the bar.

  But as I neared the spot where his friends had been, I realized that Alder was nowhere to be found. Covertly, I pretended to look around for nothing in particular, my heart beginning to hammer.

  As my body did a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, I saw that Alder had, in fact, left. He had not gone to the bathroom or out for a cigarette. He was gone.

  Good. That’s good. That’s what I wanted.

  I spun back toward the bar and waited for Jane to take my order. I ignored the feeling of unrest forming in my gut. Even if Alder was gone, for now, he was here, in Savanah. I was bound to see him again.

  Why did that fill me with unexpected pleasure?

  Sighing, I told Jane what I wanted, and she nodded before leaving me to my own devices again.

  “You’re Alder’s friend, right?”

  My attention fell on a pair of light gray eyes, attached to a young man.

  “Something like that,” I replied, sighing. He gave me a shy smile.

  “Is it you or the blonde who is his ‘old friend’?”

  I flushed at the question.

  “I have known Alder for a while,” I replied. “Why?”

  His cheeks deepened to a shade of crimson I had never seen before.

  “I was hoping that you could introduce us,” he mumbled. I laughed aloud as Jane pushed my order across the counter, and I nodded.

  “Sure,” I agreed, thinking about how much Elaine had meddled in my life over the last hour. It would serve her right if I brought back an uninvited guest. “Come on. Her name is Elaine Marks.”

  I scooped up the drinks with the man’s help, and we moved back toward the table, but when we arrived, we were both sorely disappointed.

  “Where’s Elaine?” I asked, dropping a beer in front of Marcus without any ceremony. He looked up at me imploringly, clearly longing eyes.

  “Oh…uh, she said she had somewhere better to be,” he said, shrugging. I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut. Apologetically, I turned back to Alder’s friend.

  “Sorry. I guess she left,” I told him. Disappointment clouded his face, but he managed a smile all the same.

  “It’s my fault,” he said magnanimously. “I waited too long to come over, but Alder…”

  He faltered, and I found my head cocking in interest.

  What about Alder? Did he tell you not to come over here?

  A combination of exasperation and affection overcame me to think he had.

  “Alder what?”

  “Nevermind,” he rushed on. “Thanks for trying.”

  He spun away, but even in his absence, I couldn’t shake the feeling of dread flooding my gut.

  Alder was gone.

  Elaine was gone.

  And Marcus was there.

  Why did I ever agree to go out with Elaine after work?

  Chapter Five

  Alder

  Logically, I knew I had no right to be upset. I had been gone for months. Erica and I had been over when I left. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever known. Of course she was with someone else. It wasn’t like she’s betrayed me in any way.

  Yet I couldn’t get my misgivings out of my mind as I stormed from the Raven and made my way back toward the compound without telling the others where I was going. Not that anyone came after me anyway.

  They’re probably relieved they don’t have to deal with me, I thought with increasing bitterness. I had all but forgotten that they had asked me to join them for a reason. I had been far too distracted with Erica’s presence to notice.

  My gait was almost a run, crisp and forward striding. I paid no mind to the rapidly falling darkness nor the people passing me. I’m sure they were casting me curious looks, the determination on my face unnerving.

  It wasn’t until I heard the weakened gasps of breath beside me that I let my blinders down and glanced to my side.

  “Holy smokes!” Elaine choked in dismay. “You are fast!”

  I slowed down instantly, stunned to see her there, and waited for her to catch her breath.

  “Are you following me?” I asked in confusion. She nodded, still gasping. Beads of sweat had broken out over her brow line, and I realized that she had been following me for a while. If I hadn’t been so upset over what had transpired with Erica, I might have laughed at the sight of the blonde, huffing and puffing from running after me. I had barely broken a brisk walk. She wouldn’t survive two minutes in one of our training sessions.

  “Are you okay?” I finally asked when she gulped back fresh air, and Elaine nodded.

  “Yes,” she assured me, finding her breath. “But I didn’t want you to leave without knowing the truth.”

  Intrigued, I waited for her to fully compose herself.

  “The truth about what?” I asked. Elaine held up a finger, and I realized that she was milking the drama for all it was worth in the moment, but I was mildly amused. A chill overtook the air, the winter falling heavily on us with the sun asleep for the night, but I didn’t really notice. My blood was still pumping in my veins as I anticipated Elaine’s response.

  “She’s not with Marcus,” Elaine blurted out. I blinked, a spark of hope shooting through me, but I refused to let myself embrace it.

  It didn’t look that way to me, I thought warily, wondering if Elaine was playing some cruel game with me.

  “That’s what she told you, isn’t it?” Elaine pressed. “At the bar?”

  “No…” I admitted. Erica hadn’t said anything like that, but the body language between them had spoken volumes to me. “She didn’t say that.”

  Elaine chuckled.

  “That’s because they’re not together—although not for Marcus’ lack of trying.”

  The excitement I had dared not feel grew to a fiery ball in my gut, but I warned myself to be still.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I demanded. Elaine snorted.

  “I thought I was doing you a favor.”

  “Erica wouldn’t like it,” I heard myself say. Instantly, I regretted it. Elaine’s eyes darkened, and she grunted.

  “The problem with Erica is that she doesn’t know what she wants,” Elaine said matter-of-factly. “But I can tell you for certain that I haven’t seen her as happy as I did these past few minutes in all the time I’ve known her.”

  Uncertainly, I eyed Elaine.

  “She’s not happy?”

  Elaine sighed.

  “She’s not miserable if that’s what you’re asking. I realize now that you did a number on her, even if I’ve never heard your name before today.”

  The words were bittersweet.

  Erica doesn’t talk about me. But Elaine thinks she’s been missing me.

  “Here,” Elaine continued, pulling her cell phone from out of her purse. “I’ll give you her number, and you can call her and work out whatever silliness this is between you.”

  I hesitated. The offer was more than tempting, but Erica had made it clear that she wanted me to leave her alone.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I mumbled, but I reached for my phone anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to have the digits, just in case.

  Just in case what? I scoffed at myself, but that didn’t stop me from punching in the number and saving Erica’s Georgia phone number in my contacts.

  “Funny, I wouldn’t have pegged you for an Army guy now that we’re talking.”

  There was a slightly caustic mocking lilt to Elaine’s words, and I bristled.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that you’re a soldier. Act like it. Get in there and get it done.”

  “This isn’t a war,” I reminded Elaine dryly.

  “Love is a battlefield, honey,” she tittered. “And I would call her before she does something stupid like seriously entertain a date with Marcus Fendy.”

  My jaw twitched at the thought.

  “If that’s what she wants to do, I can’t stand in her way,” I muttered, darting my gaze away so that Elaine couldn’t read my true feelings. I didn’t want her to know that the thought of Erica in anyone else’s arms made me physically feel sick to my stomach. It had been months of separation, but the feelings I had for her were still just as strong at those early days when I had followed her around the coffee shop, hoping to catch her attention.

  “If she wanted Marcus, she would have gone to him by now,” Elaine grunted, rolling her eyes like I was an idiot. “If you’re just making excuses, then forget it. I don’t know the whole story between you two, but it seems to me that sparks were flying, even if you were both too stubborn to act on them.”

  Embarrassed, I looked down at my steel-toed boots, knowing that every word she spoke was accurate. We were both incredibly stubborn and not likely to relent, even if we knew we were wrong. Here I was, being offered a second chance with the woman I had never stopped caring for.

  “The ball’s in your court,” Elaine concluded, spinning back around to head in the direction from which we had both come.

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  Again, I wished I had not spoken my insecure thought aloud. Elaine glanced over her shoulder and grinned impishly at me.

  “I’m rarely wrong about anything,” she told me with a cockiness I admired. “I’m a teacher.”

  She was gone before I could respond, but I laughed anyway.

  Slowly, I also moved my body back toward the base. I was suddenly struggling with the impulse to return to the Raven and see if I couldn’t get Erica alone, but I reminded myself that Marcus was there now.

  I could go under the pretense of joining the Shadows, I thought, but the idea of sitting with them while watching Erica flirt with another man did not sit well with me.

  No, I had to get back to the base and collect my thoughts before trying to reach out to Erica again. Who was I kidding? I needed to let my ego recover.

  But by the time I got home and flopped out on the sofa of the too-small trailer that every one of the Shadows had been issued, I had made a decision. I was calling Erica, even if she hung up in my ear.

  I waited to make the call until the next morning. Being Saturday, I knew she didn’t have to work, and I silently prayed that she wasn’t hungover. But if what Elaine had said was true, she had probably left just after we had, and she certainly hadn’t been drunk when I took off.

  It was just a chance I was going to have to take.

  The phone rang in my ear for three rings, and I felt my disappointment mounting, ready for voicemail to pick up.

  Am I going to leave a message or should I—

  “Hello?”

  The sweet buttery sound of her voice caught me off guard, my thoughts falling away from the idea of leaving a voicemail.

  “Hello?” she said again, the annoyance in her voice growing.

  “Hi,” I growled huskily into the mouthpiece. “It’s Alder.”

  I heard the gasp of surprise, and a short silence followed before she responded with the indignation I had half-expected.

  “How did you get my number? Why are you calling me?”

  She sounds irritated, but is that a note of pleasant surprise underneath it all?

  It was too soon to tell, and I didn’t jump on it.

  “Elaine gave me your number,” I replied evenly.

  “Oh, that woman…” she huffed. “That’s where she went last night!”

  “She seemed to think that we had a lot to discuss.” I offered, not wanting to throw Elaine under the bus for the good deed she had bestowed upon me. “Don’t be mad at her.”

  “I’m not mad at her. I’m mad at you!” Erica fired back in her usual feisty way. “What could we possibly have to discuss?”

  I sighed.

  “How about how you’re doing?” I asked gently. “How work is going? How are you liking Georgia?”

  Erica laughed mirthlessly.

  “Do you really care about any of those answers?” she shot back. I stifled another sigh.

  “Of course I care. I’ve always cared, Er.”

  There was another uncomfortable pause, but I knew Erica was thinking about my words and whether she wanted to accept them or not. She couldn’t miss the sincerity in my voice.

  “Work is good,” she finally conceded, and I felt my shoulders relax. “I teach eighth grade.”

  “That sounds rambunctious,” I chirped, and she laughed, probably surprising herself.

  “They are. Kids mature so much faster than they did when we were young.”

  “It’s all the technology,” I agreed. “They have so much more information than we did.”

  “Yes. They know everything,” she grunted.

  “We did once too,” I replied, grinning as I sat back against the couch. “You can’t fault kids for being kids.”

  “They’re different here too,” she explained. “In New York, they had more street smarts.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Are you enjoying it, despite the differences?”

  “I am…how is your work going?”

  I hesitated, wanting to tell her the truth about everything, but I knew I couldn’t. She was a civilian and a human. Even if I were to explain the details of what I was doing there, she wouldn’t understand.

  “As well as can be expected,” I replied vaguely.

  “You can’t tell me, can you?” she sighed.

  “No,” I answered honestly. “I can’t.”

  “I hope it was all worth it, Alder.”

  She didn’t sound angry anymore, more heartbroken, and it sent a pang of sadness through me.

  “If you’re asking if I regret leaving, the answer is yes,” I told her quietly. “But I regretted it before I even left and before I asked for the transfer. If I had known that it was really going to be over between us…”

  I trailed off, unsure of what I really wanted to say about it.

  Would I really have stayed if I suspected that Erica and I wouldn’t be together?

  It was an impossible game of “what if”, and I knew I couldn’t let my mind go there. I had no doubt that Erica had played the same version in her own mind.

  “Can we just start over?” I asked, knowing it was easier said than done. “I made mistakes, I know, but don’t you think that there’s something odd about the way the universe put us together somehow? I mean, of all the places we could have both ended up…”

  “It is weird,” she agreed, and I finally felt at ease, knowing that maybe we weren’t going to go into it swinging after all.

  “Are you seeing that guy?” I asked bluntly.

  Erica wavered.

  “No,” she replied honestly, and I closed my eyes, relief flooding my body. “I was just trying to make you jealous.”

  “You succeeded.”

  “Did I? You seemed angry, not jealous.”

  “I was both.”

  “Elaine already told you I wasn’t dating him, didn’t she?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I am going to kill her.”

  “She is watching out for you,” I said quickly.

  “She’s a brat.”

  “So are you.”

  Erica giggled.

  “I have some errands to run this morning,” she said, sounding reluctant to get off the phone. “Maybe we can talk later?”

  I liked the sound of hope in her voice.

  “Maybe we can get together later,” I offered instead.

  “We’ll see,” Erica murmured, but I had a feeling there was nothing on her schedule that she couldn’t change. “I’ll call you when I get home.”

  I had training that afternoon, but I didn’t mention it. I was already determined to keep my personal life and my base life separate from her. My work had caused enough grief between us, and I didn’t want to remind Erica of that.

  “Sounds good. Talk to you then.”

  We disconnected the call, and I flung my legs outward on the sofa, floating on the feeling that I had somehow earned a victory.

  I did earn a victory. Erica is back in my life. What else could I ask for?

  I didn’t hear from her before it was time to meet the team, and I was reluctant to leave my cell at my unit, but there wasn’t much of a choice. There was nowhere to keep cell phones when we were driving through drills and chasing one another through tactical simulations. I would just have to check my messages when I returned.

  I arrived in the woods behind the base, and surprisingly, everyone was already there. The atmosphere was thick and tense. Frowning, I looked about for some clue as to why everyone was so uptight.

  “Too much to drink yesterday?” I asked lightly. Zeus scowled deeply at me as he always did, but Darric matched his expression, their faces an almost identical shade of angry. I was physically taken aback by their looks.

  “What?” I demanded, feeling more alienated than usual.

  “Where did you go last night?” Mason growled when no one else spoke. I was used to being left out of the group, but this overt attack was slightly new.

  “I needed some air,” I answered truthfully. “So, I headed out.”

  “We told you we had something to discuss with you.”

  I tensed.

  “Sorry,” I retorted. “I didn’t know I had to clear my every movement with you.”

  I couldn’t keep the sarcasm from my voice, and predictably, it wasn’t well-received.

  “You see? You can’t depend on him for anything,” Zeus hissed, spinning away from me. Before I could respond to such an unfair assessment, the twin had morphed into his wolf form and bounded fully into the woods.

  “What?” I demanded. “What did I miss?”

  “Nevermind,” Mason shot back, following Zeus’ lead. Darric followed suit, and Trevor cast me an almost apologetic glance before going after them, leaving me alone. All the happiness I had been carrying since Erica’s phone call deflated inside me, and I could only stare after the spot where the team had disappeared.

  Just when I thought that maybe I was making some progress with them, they go and act like a pack of wild dogs.

 

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