Chapter 9
Knowing she should be in bed didn't stop Monica from waiting for Jack. She'd met with Crusty about Yasmine, checked in with the command post about the drop, even watched Jack's plane land. He was fine, the mission a success, not that she expected anything less from him.
Standing outside his room to catch him after debrief, she told herself she was waiting around to tell him about Yasmine. She knew better.
She needed his level steadiness to settle her world after the conversation with her youngest sister. While Jack's I-don't-give-a-shit attitude often drove her crazy, other times she envied his ability to shrug things off. He didn't dwell or let stuff out of his control bother him.
Froot Loop memories. He accepted life's quirks, banging back a handful of cereal while acknowledging he didn't like little planes. No apologies or mad dash for a shrink to analyze for possible claustrophobia. Adapt. Move on.
He knew how to let go of his past.
She needed that now. So much. God help her, she was slowly beginning to wonder if she needed Jack.
And there he was, all wide shoulders and hard angles, with the sweaty swirl of dark hair along his brow. Jack strode down the hall, Rodeo behind with a pensive frown marring his normally suave, unflappable demeanor.
Jack turned to his copilot. "Go ahead without me and you can have first dibs on the shower."
Rodeo thumped him on the back. "Take it easy, man."
The copilot skated one more curious glance Monica's way before circling past and into the two-man room.
Jack didn't move, making Monica come to him, an odd sensation after so long of always finding him in her face and space. As if drawn by a magnet, she stepped closer, closer still until she stopped short. Intensity radiated from him, something dark, alien, even a little mean and so unlike Jack. His stand-back vibes created boundaries around him until the magnet feeling suddenly shifted poles to propel her away.
What the hell was going on? "Is everything all right?"
"Just fine." He swiped a hand through his sweaty hair creased from a serious case of helmet-head. "You could have just hung out in the command post to hear how things went."
"I already did that."
"Then why are you here?"
His abrupt tone acted like a cold splash over her. Was the thrill of the chase gone? She'd started to weaken so now he didn't care anymore? Damn but that possibility bit. Even while she'd predicted it might happen, she couldn't stomach the thought that the past seven months had meant that little to him.
Still pride was difficult to subdue. She refused to be like any of the ex-live-ins her father had gone through, red-eyed, weeping women jamming possessions into a suitcase once her father booted the woman out for becoming too needy. "I found Yasmine wandering around the halls after you left."
"Was she coming out of the Colonel's room?"
"God, no."
"Then I wouldn't worry about it. She can't leave, and everything important is sealed tight." He shuffled from boot to boot, eyeing his door, obviously wanting the hell away from her ASAP.
Damn him. Well, he could just sit tight for five freaking seconds and answer her questions. She wasn't going to bolt off into her room next door like some intimidated rabbit. "What if she's not being straight up?"
"She's being watched. There's really not much more we can do than that except shunt her back into the Rubistanian community after we're through. Which of course could put us in sticky diplomatic waters because of her mother."
"I realize all of that, and I'm trying like hell not to let my bias against her affect the way I'm thinking." She mentally counted to cool her temper at Jack as well as Yasmine. "She said she was washing her spare set of clothes."
"Anything else?"
She crossed her arms under her breasts. "Not anything important."
His eyes fell to her chest. Interest flickered. "Okay, I'll mention it to Keagan and Crusty at the next briefing."
"Thank you."
He pivoted away. Double damn him.
Then his shoulders fell. With a sigh that sounded more like a snarl of self-disgust, he turned back. "What's wrong?"