Ignite (Unbreakable Bonds 7)

“She’s gorgeous, but it looks like she comes from a very gorgeous family,” JB said.

“Oh yeah,” Rowe murmured.

Noah shook his head as he started to search for a picture he’d taken of Daciana at Ward Security with several of the bodyguards. Those huge guys doted on her.

“Are you guys planning to have kids too?” JB asked and Noah’s finger froze on the screen of his phone. He swallowed hard and glanced over at Rowe to see the same “deer in the headlights” expression he’d seen when Snow teased them about getting married.

In the two years they’d been together, they’d never once discussed it. They’d lain in bed and talked about getting llamas, moving to Colorado, expanding Ward Security, closing Ward Security, and a hundred other insane and mostly stupid ideas. But the concepts of marriage and kids had never crossed their lips. Outside of one joke about a skydiving wedding in Vegas…

“Right now, I think we’re good with the three oversized babies we’ve got at the house,” Noah said, hating how uneven his voice sounded after too much silence.

“Plus we tend to travel a lot. Things randomly blowing up on us,” Rowe added, helping to smooth over the awkward moment. “Have you heard anything from Gidget yet?”

“It’s only been a few hours,” Noah said. He tucked his phone away as he strode across the room. He was trying like hell not to pace because there just wasn’t a whole lot of room to move around. And if he started getting twitchy, Rowe would get twitchy. “Give the poor woman some time.”

After losing the two men in the sedan and driving around the city for a while just so they wouldn’t have to return to the motel, they’d found a small diner to grab a bite to eat. They’d checked over the car to make sure they hadn’t picked up a tracking device while they were in talking to Sally. Noah’s Jeep was clean…in a manner of speaking.

With nothing but time on their hands until Gidget came back with something useful, they decided to drive into DC for a little sightseeing. Noah had never been to the nation’s capital. They found a spot and wandered along the national mall and ducked inside the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Noah was a closet history nut. He loved wandering through the exhibit on the evolution of man and then getting to see the Hope Diamond on display.

And since Noah had started it, both Rowe and JB voted for a visit to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Noah had to chuckle at the two of them going ape over the Spirit of Saint Louis and the war gear and aircraft on display from World War II. Noah had been more interested in the space race.

A good, happy exhaustion was wearing on them when they finally shuffled back to Alexandria and their motel. With their tail missing and no tracking device, they felt fairly certain that they’d be able to get a good night’s sleep. But Noah was starting to feel very skeptical over how any of them were going to be able to sleep. Gidget hadn’t sent over any information yet. Other than to knock on the front door of Clayborne and demand answers, they didn’t have a next step, and that didn’t sit well with Noah.

Chris was dead.

Paul was dead.

Dave, who was supposed to be dead, was somehow alive?

They’d been in town for a day, and they already had people following them.

“Can either of you tell me anything about this Dave guy Chris saw?” Rowe said.

Noah glanced over at JB, who frowned at him. “I don’t remember meeting him personally,” Noah said. “When we arrived at the temporary base, I immediately met with the captain overseeing the camp and platoon. Officially handed over our charge to the next team. We were dismissed to return to our base of operations. I chatted with a sergeant major as I was heading to the chow line about recent reconnaissance and activity in the area.”

“I remember you saying that no one was asking us to stick around, so we might as well head back,” JB chimed in.

Rowe glared at him. “You were looking for a fight?”

JB shrugged. “This was our first mission in almost two months. It had been too quiet, and we weren’t trained to sit on our asses. It was like they were telling us we weren’t needed in Afghanistan. Fine, then send us somewhere we could be of use.”

“It’s not like I can recall you ever sitting still all that well,” Noah teased.

Rowe had been pretty intolerable between missions when they were in the Army together. His superiors had quickly learned to keep Rowe in the field and occupied or else he was going to end up in jail for some kind of disorderly conduct. His favorite target was the press, and they’d learned to run from Rowe on sight. From what he’d heard from Snow and Lucas, Rowe had been the same when they were serving together.