Joint Forces (27 page)

Two more steps. Past a plant stand.

Bo inched closer. "Even sell drugs and pump money into terrorist accounts?"

"If I don't do it—" Haugen shrugged, his gun pulling out of Rena's side, but his grip on her arm still tight enough to dig into her flesh "—they'll only find someone else."

Bo's chest expanded with outrage, bravado, as he strutted closer, an arm's reach from Rena. "That's a bullshit excuse to justify your own greed and you know it."

In place, J.T. nodded to Bo. Knew the young officer caught the movement even though he was smart enough not to alert Haugen by looking away.

"Are you an idiot or what to tick me off this way?" Haugen advanced around Rena.

No, Bo wasn't an idiot. But Haugen was. This time, the enemy was going down.

Bo sprung toward Rena. Body blocked her out of the line of fire. J.T. launched through the cleared archway, tackled Haugen. They hit the tile. Hard. Teeth jarring as they skidded across the kitchen, bashing into chairs, the table. He pinned Haugen's gun hand to the floor.

Rena? He wanted to check. Didn't dare lose focus.

Haugen arched, swung his other fist. J.T. blocked. Slammed Haugen's hand against the saltillo tile floor, once, again and again until the gun clanked free.

J.T. channeled the roar, instincts honed and focused. This was home turf and damn anyone who threatened what was his.

Haugen panicked, bucked, tried to twist.

J.T. coldcocked the son of a bitch with an uppercut to the jaw. Haugen's head smacked tile, lolled to the side. Chris scooped up the gun, his too-long legs and awkward teen body never exhibiting more speed and grace.

That fast, it was over. Battles often were, and thank God this one ended with no shots fired. Rena? He searched, saw her shielded by Bo's body behind the pantry door.

Rocking back on his haunches, J.T. shook out his aching fist and extended his other arm. Rena untangled herself from Bo, shook loose her ties and flew forward. She landed against J.T.'s chest. Into his embrace.

Covering his face with kisses.

"Ohmigod, J.T., you did it, holy crap, you really did it." She reached for Chris. "Come here, kiddo."

J.T. glanced over her shoulder to their son. "You okay?"

"Yeah, Dad, I'm cool." The teen passed the pistol to his father. "I'm okay, Mom. Geez, no need to pump out the tears."

"Shush up." Her arms closed around both of them. No arguing with a determined Rena. "I'll cry over both of you as much as I damn well please. And Bo, too, oh God, thank you."

Bo's face creased into his best bad-boy grin. "No problem. And as much as I'd enjoy a hot lady like you crying all over me, I'm not overeager to meet up with Tag's right hook."

Winking, Bo yanked up the phone, dialed, relaying clipped details for 911.

J.T. trained the gun on Haugen's prone body while keeping Rena tucked close.

Adrenaline still surged through him, but aftermath stripped away the numbness of battle focus. Emotions blazed through him—good, bad, some raw primal, some even downright Shakespearean poetic. And yeah, the force and collective roar still scared the crap out of him.

But not enough to make him run for the quiet of cover anymore. Not now that he understood exactly what he'd been missing by closing himself off from the full power of his love for his wife. Her love for him.

With the joint forces of Rena's indomitable will and his determination, they could accomplish anything—

even rebuild a marriage made to last a lifetime.

* * *

Once he thanked Bo for a debt he could never repay.

The young officer leaned against the opposite post, flexing his fingers. Yeah, crap like this brought back some bad memories.

Crickets and june bugs hummed above the minimal traffic. Street lamps glowed into empty yards, lights flickering off in the windows of a neighborhood going to sleep. Chris, upstairs being fussed over by Rena, would likely be asleep soon, as well, the teenager exhausted, relieved. There would still be trial testimonies, but the badasses had been nailed.

Rena's surprise ID of the circle/triangle symbol even offered Spike the final link he'd been seeking. Now authorities knew where to look in tracking the drop-off point for the drugs once they'd been run up the coast.

And all without a bullet fired.

J.T. rubbed his hand along the tender knot on the back of his head. A small price for putting this all to rest. One of the flight surgeons had even made a house call for him, checked him over, deemed him perfectly well thanks to his thick head.

And hadn't Rena laughed at that pronouncement? Damn, but her laughter sounded good. God willing, he was through making her cry. "Thanks, Bo, for everything today. You really put your butt on the line for my family."

"I owed you."

"Well, we're definitely even."

"Nobody's keeping score. It's what we do for each other," Bo said in an echo of Spike's same words, not surprising since the credo ingrained itself in all of them.

Bo studied his bootlaces. "Besides, it felt damn good to strike back at the bad guys on this one. Makes everything that happened to us over there mean something."

"Yeah, I hear you." Understatement. It had taken them nearly four months, but finally, they'd completed their mission.

J.T. drew in a little more of that magnolia-scented air to ground himself in home.

Home.

It was time to return.

Bo pushed away from the post. "Well, man, I should hit the road. I'm betting I can milk this for a little TLC from someone of the female persuasion. What do you think?"

J.T. thumped the young officer on the back on their way down the flagstone path. "I'm thinking that you better stay the hell away from my daughter,
sir
, or I'll tell people your real name."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Bo swung up into the front seat. "No crewdogs for your little girl."

"No players."

"A player? Who me?" Winking, he cranked the Jeep. "Catch ya' later, dude. I'm off to romance my lady friend."

Bo revved the engine, shifting into reverse and roaring out of the driveway into the night.

Romance. Chuckling, J.T. shook his head. He and Rena had pretty much skimmed over that part, jumping from shared hamburgers to a shared kid, family, apartment, day-to-day get moving with life.

More lights along the rows of houses switched off, reminding him of his explanation to Rena about his work/life switch, his inability to blend the two worlds.

Had he somehow segmented his relationship with Rena, as well? Dating, one switch. Flick the switch to husband, another mind-set, being a provider like his father.

Recreation had never played a big role in his life. He'd found a job he enjoyed, productive hobbies like rebuilding his house or his car. And for smiles? Light? He had Rena.

But what had he given her for light in return?

Well, hell. He stared down the empty road. A few weeks ago he'd been beating his head against the wall at the prospect of entering the "dating" world again. But now, the idea sent one helluva thrill through him

—when the right woman was involved.

The romance gig wasn't a crapshoot, after all. As much as he wanted to present Rena with diamonds and fancy vacations, the incredible woman he loved enjoyed circus peanuts, too.

He wasn't giving up on draping her in a diamond or two someday. But he'd finally learned he could also drape her in plenty of romance now.

J.T. fished into his back pocket for his cell phone. After twenty-two years, it was about time he asked his wife for a date.

* * *

"Yeah?" Chris called from his bed, pitching a magazine to a floor already covered in clothes, a towel and schoolbooks.

Her heart rate still thumped an extra couple of beats every time she remembered how close she'd come to losing J.T. and Chris today.

Rena tiptoed over a discarded backpack on her way to her son's bedside. "Are you okay, hon?"

"Still a little wigged out, but it'll be better in the morning. Just need to sleep. Maybe swim some laps tomorrow. Get my head together."

She perched on the edge of his bedside table. "Swimming laps is a good way to relax."

"Yeah. Gotta work out the stress somehow." He crooked both arms behind his head. "Dad's probably down in his office veging with the Bard."

"Excuse me?"

"You know. How he always reads Shakespeare and junk like that to chill."

But she didn't know.

How could she have missed that about her husband? A sad commentary on how little she and J.T. had communicated over the years. She would have cried her eyes out over the discovery a couple of days ago. Now it only fueled her resolve to learn more about this fascinating man she'd married. And along the way let him learn some more about her, as well.

"'Night, hon." Rena leaned to skim a good-night kiss on her son's forehead. "I love you."

He hooked an arm up and around for a hug. "Love you, too, Mom." He pulled back, mock surprise on his face.

"Gee, when did you get so little?"

"When did you get so big?" She grinned.

Laughing, a deeper sound these days, he flopped back. "G'night."

"Good night, hon."

Clicking off the overhead light, she left, closing his door on her way out. Finally, she and J.T. could be alone. Would they talk? Or just cut straight to mind-blowing sex? Or pass out from exhaustion?

Her tummy tumbled in nervous flips.

Rena padded down the stairs, toward the computer room, refusing to let the ghosts of their afternoon horror haunt her home. She peeked into the office. No J.T., but sure enough, right beside the butt-ugly green chair rested a thick tome.

She stepped closer, her hand falling to rest on the volume of Shakespearean plays. She thumbed through, some pages highlighted, her husband's spiky scrawl beside passages. She let the book fall open as if it might give her a glimpse into J.T., a hint for what she should do next.

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
Measure
for Measure
. Rena traced a finger along the words. No more waiting. She knew exactly what she needed to do and finally had the confidence in herself to go for broke.

Rena snapped closed the book. She had a husband to welcome home.

Making tracks back up the stairs, she headed straight for the bedroom closet. First on her welcome-home agenda, clear room for his flight suits and Hawaiian shirts.

A swoop of her arm smooshed her work dresses to the side. She didn't intend to give up pushing for marital counseling. But in the meantime, she could still go on her own, work through some of her issues from her childhood. Straighten out her insecurities and need for control.

A starting place.

Kneeling, she lined her heels up in double rows to empty space for his boots and gym shoes.

The phone jangled from beside the bed.

A call? This late?

She eased to her feet and rushed to scoop the cordless phone from beside a pot of minimums. "Hello?"

"Hi, is Rena there?" her husband's deep voice rumbled through the line.

Huh? Had he hit his head harder than she'd thought? Maybe she should have insisted the flight surgeon take another look at him. "J.T.? Are you all right?"

"I'm totally all right. In fact, I've been more than all right since I saw you at that air show."

Okay, now she was really getting worried. "J.T., where are you?"

"Turn around."

She spun—to find him lounging against the hall door, cell phone at his ear. One black leather hoot pressed to the wall, his knee bent. His flight suit stretched across mile-wide shoulders. "I was hoping you'd remember me, because since the second I saw you, I've been hoping like hell you'd go out with me. So, I decided to give you a call, see if you're free this Friday for a date with a local flyboy."

God, as much as she drooled over those shoulders of his, he really took her breath away when he smiled.

Damned if she didn't feel eighteen again.

Phone pressed to her ear, she smiled back at him, flicked her hair over her shoulder, played along. "I might be free, if the right flyboy asked."

"Well, babe, I'm asking." He angled away from the door frame, ambled closer, his big, muscled body drawing nearer, filling her eyes and her heart. "And I intend to keep right on asking until I can convince you to go out with me."

He stopped inches away.

She clicked off her phone but kept it cradled against her neck, soaking up the silly romantic gesture a little while longer. "You are so crazy sometimes."

"Not often." He set his phone on the end table. "And only for you, babe. Only for you."

He reached for her phone, as well, and placed it beside his before lifting her hand, kissing her palm.

Definitely eighteen again, but with a forty-year-old's wisdom on how to do things better this go-round. "I want you to come home. For good."

"That's where I want to be." He folded her hand against his chest, against his heart thumping along at a pace as fast as hers. "Not just because you're pregnant, but because I can't stand the thought of living the rest of my life without you beside me."

She gathered the beautiful words up into her heart with surety and happiness, because, by God, J.T.

never lied.

He stared down at their linked fingers and rather than pushing him to talk, she knew now to wait. He would come around to filling the silence if she simply gave him the chance.

"I spoke with the flight surgeon when she checked out the lump on my head."

Her racing heart stopped. "You're okay?"

"Totally fine." The twinkle in his eyes jump-started her heart again. "Although you'll have to keep me awake all night."

She sagged closer, her hips rocking against his. "I think that can be arranged."

"Thank God." His forehead fell to rest against hers. His chest expanded with two hefty sighs before he continued, "About my discussion with the flight surgeon. I asked her to recommend a marriage counselor."