Kill List (Special Ops #8) (10 page)

He chuckled. “Yeah, they all call me Skip for a reason. Maybe one day I’ll tell you my real name.”

“Now that sounds like a mystery worth solving. But maybe I can convince Chogan to tell me sooner.” She looked at her man and saw the hint of a smile in his eyes. Oh yeah, he knew exactly what she would use to convince him. Her curiosity was definitely peaked. She knew Trace’s real name was Tracer, but she had just assumed Skip’s real name was Skip. She hadn’t imagined Chogan had been calling him by a code name or something. These men were interesting to say the least. If she lived long enough maybe she could get to know more of his friends.

“Breakfast is ready so come out while it’s still hot.”

“Could you just bring it in here?” Chogan asked.

“Certainly not!” She had that shocked tone in her voice. “The table is set and we are going to eat like a family.” She walked away not even waiting for rebuttal. They weren’t family really but she missed the family sit down dinner setting. She had been eating alone standing up or hovering over a magazine about fashion she wasn’t interested in for so long that she wanted this moment of normal togetherness.

She heard the men enter the room behind her. They were soft walkers, especially Chogan. Chogan could walk into a room and nobody knew he was there. She heard Skip’s footsteps though. Skip was a little heavier, but not in an out of shape kind of way. He couldn’t have been more than five foot ten inches because he was shorter than Chogan, but kind of the size of a guy she knew in college when it came to height. He was nicely put together if she did say so herself. Pale brown eyes with dark black hair set off the coloring in his skin—more islander hot than American bred in the look. But he wasn’t Chogan and there was no threat of any attraction forming outside of respect on her part. She could tell Chogan was sending up the warning to Skip that she was his so keep his hands off. Something about that made her giddy like a schoolgirl. Maybe she was the kind of woman who could cause a car crash even though she didn’t think she was. She was apparently the kind of woman a man would fight over—more importantly, the kind of woman a man would protect.

“This all smells and looks so good.” Skip started digging in as well as Chogan. “You’re not eating?” He looked at her.

“Oh, I’m mostly vegetarian; all that is for you all. The fruit and nuts here are for me.” She pointed to her plate of grapes and pear, peach, portions along with the small bowl of peanuts and pecans. “Eat up guys. I wasn’t sure about your appetites, but I figured military men, physically fit, you probably need a lot of calories to keep it moving.”

Skip nodded in agreement as he bit half the turkey bacon strip apart and munched on it with satisfaction. “She should see D-camp eat,” he said before taking another bite.

“D-camp?”

Chogan chuckled. “The man could eat the portions of a small country probably. He’s army—big black guy but big in muscles, not fat. He’s called D-camp, shortened from code name Death Camp. An enemy goes into his camp and they don’t come out breathing.”

“Oh,” she said. “What’s his real name?”

Skip shrugged. “I never bothered to learn it.”

Chogan laughed. “Yeah, we’re all code name for the most part, but D-camp is really named Yorkshire. Yorkshire Garvey.”

She laughed. “Yorkshire…does anybody call him York?”

“Uh, no. He hates when people call him that. The last fool who tried it in jest ended up getting a serious connection with one of his near lethal right hooks.”

“I see,” she nodded. “So what’s your codename, Chogan?”

“It’s what my name actually has meaning for.”

“Blackbird,” she said with certainty.

“Amber told you?”

“No. I looked it up…uh,” she squirmed at her admission. “I had a crush on you for a long time before I fell in love with you. I researched your name and your tribe, as much as I could find anyway.”

He looked pleased with her admission. She blushed as she tried to occupy her mouth with food so she could stop spilling all her details.

“D-camp says he’s like a da—um darn,” he cleaned up his language. “He’s like a blackbird. You see him and you better put boots to the ground running. Apparently, and I know he’s right on this; Chogan here can spot the enemy in his sleep. He’s also lethal as a warrior.”

“She doesn’t need to know all that,” Chogan said in an attempt to shut the man up.

“I don’t mind,” she said.

“Yeah, he’s saved us a great many times.”

“And you all have saved me too. We work as a team. No one man is greater than the next.”

Skip nodded in agreement.

“That’s how it should be,” she said. They were a team, a family. They would put their lives on the line to save each other, and that to her was an amazing force of nature all on its own. She sighed sadly.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“I was just thinking I wish Keisha and I had this kind of relationship.”

“Who’s Keisha?”

“My sister. She’s…we were never close really.”

“Well it’s never too late.”

“It is when I can’t find her,” she nearly snorted.

“What?”

“Her sister caused a whole lot of trouble for her family. Liv left the doctoral pursuit to come back and help her parents. They were killed, her sister just vanished. She’s probably out there somewhere so long as she didn’t decide to get herself mixed up with somebody else’s mafia.”

“What?” Skip nearly choked on his toast.

“She…she likes to gamble and she got in with the wrong family. It cost my parents everything…cost me everything. She ran off and I haven’t been able to find her. I’ve given up trying.”

“So you don’t even know if she’s still alive?”

“Nope. I hope she is. I mean she’s family so it would be nice not to think the last of the family line rest with me. My father was an only child. My mother…well, her parents and eldest brother were killed when the passenger train they were on derailed. My mom spent the rest of her childhood with her aunt, but her aunt died just after she married my father…my mother married my father that is, not my aunt.” She didn’t want any confusion here. “So I’m the last one if my sister isn’t still out there somewhere. The bloodline ends with me—when I die we’re gone. So yeah, I hope Keisha is still out there somewhere.”

Chogan growled low. “You’re not dying,” he said those words with such hostility she felt it in her bones. She wouldn’t argue with him now. She wouldn’t tell him that he couldn’t promise her that because the man looked like he was ready to raise the war flag higher and she would be in the path of his verbal assault if she implied she just might die because of this assassin after her.

“Say it,” he nearly ordered like she was one of his military men under his command.

“Say what?” What was he expecting her to say? What exactly were they talking about again? Keisha…something about Keisha. The anger in his eyes had her eyes widening.

“You’re not going to die. Say it.”

“Cho—”

“Say it!”

She heard her fork hit the plate between the peaches and the pears. Clearly his voice had shocked her and she hadn’t even realized she had released the fork until it clanked on the glass dish. “I’m not going to die,” her voice trembled.

“Damn straight you’re not.” His voice was lethally low as he bolted upright, his chair sliding back and tipping over to the floor as he stormed out of the nook area.

She couldn’t believe his outburst. She couldn’t believe he yelled at her. She felt her mouth hanging agape and she closed it, turning her gaze to look at Skip. Shock still resonating in her eyes, in her posture, and radiating down her spine.

Skip shrugged. “He’s a Marine, a warrior, and your thinking you’re going to die underestimates him. He’s also a man in love with you so the thought of you dying infuriates him. Marine’s don’t take lightly when it comes to being second guessed on their ability to protect, and certainly not when it comes to their woman.”

Was that what she had done—second guessed him? She hadn’t meant to but she was a realist here. This wasn’t exactly fiction. Things didn’t always work out as planned in real life. “I didn’t—”

“You did,” he nodded in assurance.

She sat her napkin on the table. “I should go fix this.”

“Yes you should,” he looked at her as if he were disappointed in her. Heck, she wasn’t military. How was she supposed to know how temperamental and moody they could be?

Olivia softly padded into the room she had found the men in at first. Her eyes raked over the room, not seeing him. She sighed. Now she was going to have to go in search of him. She was ready to turn and go look for him when a hand clasped over her mouth and an arm wrapped around her waist. She heard the mumbled fear that came from her.

“This,” the voice was familiar. “This is me. I can protect you. I can attack the enemy when he least expects it. I can get in, and I can get out without a trace. Don’t ever doubt that.”

His hand released her mouth, but he hadn’t yet untangled his arm from around her waist. Her breathing was hard and heavy.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again.” She felt her own sense of anger flare. She had been scared enough this month to last a lifetime and she didn’t need to experience more.

“Don’t ever give me a reason to,” he uttered those words in her ear. He wasn’t sorry not one bit and maybe that made her angrier than his actions in the first place.

“You have no idea,” she felt her voice trembling. “You have no idea what it’s like to see your best friend on her knees and a man, a complete animal, just kill her. You have no idea what it feels like to be laughing and talking one moment and seeing something so horrific you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to close your eyes and not see it again. You have no idea what it’s like to hide in plain sight and know that you could be dead, that he can find you and kill you at any moment. You have no idea what it feels like to know the people you would have called for help could be the very people who kill you too. You have no idea!” She heard the tears in her voice and felt the salty liquid streaming down her cheeks.

“I do have an idea,” he said more smoothly. “I have been in hell and watched comrades fall beside me. I have been career military so I know,” he placed the palm of his hand on her throat and let his thumb glide gently up the side of her neck. “I know what it feels like to sense fear, to lose the ones you care about as if they were your blood. I know. I do know. So I understand your fear. But fear will get you killed if you let it, Liv. Fear will dull your senses, not sharpen them. Fear will cause you to second guess, to sidestep, to make the wrong move. You cannot let this fear consume you. You cannot let it make you think we can’t protect you—that I can’t protect you.”

She relaxed her body against his, her back pressed softly now against his body. “I’m sorry,” she said the words that she had come in here to say in the first place. “I am afraid. I’m afraid for me, but mostly I’m afraid I’m going to watch another Harjo die and this time it will be completely my fault.”

“You must trust me,” he slid the palm of hand to her abdomen. “You must trust me to protect you, Olivia, otherwise this, we, can never work.”

He had switched back to full name again which told her the man was serious. Trust him or leave him. Was it that easy for him? Yes, it was that easy for him. It was easy for him and simple for him because without trust a relationship could never last.

“Put your fear off the grid and let me be your protector, your strength, that force of nature that will move heaven and destroy hell to keep you alive. Trust my ability to keep you safe.”

She felt her body tremble against his. “I’ll trust you,” she nearly whispered those words and he spun her around so swiftly she lost her balance. His arms came around her, anchoring her to his body and holding her tightly as he lowered his head and allowed his nose to brush against the top of her hair, inhaling strongly and wantonly.

“I love you, Liv. I love you and I will not lose you. I will keep you safe and alive. No matter what I have to do in order to do that I will do it.”

She understood his words. He would kill for her. He would probably even die for her. She didn’t want him to die. She didn’t want him to have to take a life though she knew he had already probably taken many. He was in wars, he was in special ops; there was no way he hadn’t delivered a kill shot.

She held him tightly just as he held her. “I love you too, Chogan” she ran her hand lightly up and down his spine. “Come back and eat,” she kept hold of him, waiting for him to break the hold when he was ready.

“Yeah,” he reluctantly released her body and took hold of her hand. When they got back to the table her eyes went wide and Chogan let out a groan with a headshake.

“I didn’t know how long you would be gone,” Skip said as he finished taking a bite of the last piece of turkey bacon. “This was so good I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

“So you ate mine too,” Chogan shook his head again.

“Yep; it was really good, man. Thanks for sharing with me.”

“Sharing,” Chogan glared at him and Olivia laughed.

“I see I’m going to have to make more food—a lot more.” Her eyes raked over the empty serving platters.

“Yeah, just wait until Trace gets here. That man eats more than I do.”