Command Performance

Thank God she’d waited until his friend left. Maggie did her best to appear unaffected by his reference to Saturday, while inside her stomach gave a little flip. “Great, when can I sit down with him?”

“I’ll give him a call and let you know,” he said.

“And the sixth member of your team?”

Hunter hesitated for the first time since she’d sat down. “He’s taking some R & R. It might be a while before I can track him down.”

She needed firsthand accounts of the Rangers’ ride, but she might not have to speak with all six members of the team. Still, something about Hunter’s response didn’t sit right with her. “Were you close with your teammates?”

“Like brothers.”

“Did you always deploy together?” she asked, her fingers moving over the keyboard.

“No. This was the only time I’d worked with Connor. He completed Ranger school weeks before we deployed.”

“Then why send him? Could he ride better than the other Rangers?”

“First, he’s a computer geek and we needed someone who knew our equipment backward and forward. And second, no one knew about the horses until we met up with our Afghan contact.”

“Did you think it was a trick? The horses? Some military divisions refuse to work with the Afghans after so many of them have turned around and shot the American soldiers sent in to train them.”

“We’re not most soldiers.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Maggie fired back.

“There was always a risk that it was a trick. Our contact could have led us into an ambush. But our commanding officers decided the mission—rescuing those American women—was worth taking the risk.”

Maggie typed furiously as he spoke, and then paused. “I still don’t understand how you didn’t know about the horses. Someone had been in touch with this local warlord? He knew you were coming?”

Hunter nodded. “He reached out to us. He offered to lead us to where the aid workers were being held. No one thought to ask about the mode of transportation. We were expecting trucks and he arrived with horses. In hindsight, someone should have made the connection. The gifts our friend requested included vodka and oats.”

Maggie leaned forward in her chair. “Oats?”

He let out a laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah, oats. One of the bags opened up when the cargo ship dropped us. I guess the guys prepping our mission assumed the Afghans liked oatmeal.”

Maggie smiled, feeling some of the tension in her body ease. He’d relaxed and stopped fighting for control, at least for the time being. She watched him sit back in the chair. He rolled his shoulder, the injured one, as if it pained him. She frowned. “You were shot on this mission, correct?”

Again he hesitated. “Yes.”

“What happened?” In her mind, she pictured him bleeding while riding a galloping horse through the Afghan mountains.

“That’s classified.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “I have security clearance.” She’d fought long and hard to get it for her research.

“Classified and personal,” he said.

The tension between them was palpable, but no longer entirely sexual. The writer in her told her she was on to something.

“Hello? Maggie?” Olivia’s voice shattered the tension.

What was Olivia doing here? And why had she chosen the worst possible time to interrupt? Maggie felt a brief moment of panic as if she’d been caught doing something naughty.

“Maggs?” Olivia called a second time.

But there was no reason to be alarmed. Maggie was working. Nothing improper about that. Still, she wasn’t ready to explain Hunter’s presence to her best friend. Not that she had a choice now. She stood, notebook in hand, and called out, “On the porch.”

Olivia marched through the door wearing a hot-pink-and-black print dress and black high-heeled boots. She froze when she saw Hunter and turned to Maggie.