Rena stopped by the table, couldn't move anyhow. Facing J.T. after making love shouldn't be this … tummy flipping. Exciting. Scary. Much like after their true first time when she realized what they'd done changed everything.
Except after the real first time, he'd held her, kissed her. Damn it, if she couldn't have the holding, she at least wanted her morning-after kiss.
"Hi," she said softly, words suddenly drying up.
"Hi back." J.T. smiled, extending one hand with a muffin, the other with a glass of milk. "Breakfast? I was going to bring it up to you."
Emotions squeezed tighter.
He leaned down over the chair between them while she moved closer and, yes, she had her good-morning kiss even if he couldn't touch her, the chair between them and his hands full of her breakfast. And how sweet was that?
His lips moved over her with a firm, deep, slow kiss as if they had nowhere to go, no real world concerns. A kiss, right in the room where they'd enjoyed a hot encounter after his return from Guam when there had been plenty of sex but, heartbreakingly, no kissing.
His tongue coaxed her lips open, swept inside, connected, explored, sending her tummy into a flat spin. Then he kept right on kissing her so she couldn't say something that would mess this up, and God, but she was relieved.
With a final skim of his lips over hers, he stepped back. "I need to grab my boots and change patches." He placed her muffin and milk on the table. "Be back in a few and then we can leave once you're dressed."
Watching him stride into the garage where they'd made such passionate love the night before, she reminded herself that she had kisses back. That was a positive step. And now she knew what to do to keep them once they both finished their half day at work.
She also knew how hard her reticent husband would resist her solution. Which scared her all the more because this was it. Their last chance.
J.T.'s words echoed through her mind. Anyone can be brave when the odds are in your favor. It's what you do when you're scared that's the true measure of courage.
She sunk into the chair. Great.
With the way odds were stacked against her, her bravery points must be off the charts.
J.T. stood to the side while Spike clicked through the cipher lock at the OSI building. The opening door—thick metal like a safe—hissed with the release of air from the area sealed tight for soundproofing.
He followed Spike through security, down halls and past a mix of workers in uniforms and civilian clothes—the heart of military counterintelligence keeping base personnel clean. He hated like hell that anyone around him might have a part in drug trafficking.
At least he had the connections here to learn the worst his son could face.
Spike swung a door open to a small interrogation room, sparse, stark and a helluva lot less dirty and dark than its counterpart in Rubistan. They'd already exchanged the basic info on Chris's situation out in Spike's office before the OSI agent had gone silent, then suggested they take the rest of the conversation to a more secure part of the building.
J.T. dropped into one of the unrelenting chairs in the windowless room in a completely windowless building. "Thanks again for coming in early after pulling an all-nighter."
"No problem." Spike sat across from him, coffee cup in hand, dark circles of sleeplessness lining sharp, clear eyes. "Had to come in anyway after how things shook down last night."
"I'll take that as a good sign." J.T. downed the dregs of his java, his fourth cup of the day.
"You'd be right." Spike tipped back his coffee. "DEA cameras confirmed the boats were picking up the drugs and coming back clean. Until last night, we couldn't figure out how they were offloading the drugs. Turns out, they were packaging up the stuff and placing it in the shrimper nets. They cast the net out, but with the webbing loose on one side so the drugs drop into the harbor. Net comes back empty. Looks like a bad throw to the casual observer. They repair the net and keep right on trawling for the rest of the day—or in this case, evening."
"And how's the exchange made?"
"We're still tracking that, but we're pretty certain a small underwater craft, minisub, retrieves it and runs it up the coast. It's freaking genius when you think about it. Without this tip-off, who the hell knows how long it would have taken us to figure it out? Now we just need to pinpoint who's receiving on the other end. We've already connected two independent shrimpers and a market here. We expect more to fall."
"And do you think this ties in to what Chris saw?"
"Could be. Based on your message, I made a few calls before you got here. The young woman, Miranda Casale, has already been picked up for questioning. Everyone at the restaurant will be questioned sometime today. A lot of base kids work at that place. Could be coincidental. Could be someone looking for a new contact. With any luck, that common symbol on the bumper sticker, the brick and the girl's necklace will lock in the final connection."
J.T. nodded, crumpling the disposable cup in his fist. These bastards had come after his wife and kid. He hoped they fried. His job might have brought stress to his home life, but at the moment he couldn't help being damn glad he'd played a part in bringing down scum like these.
Spike placed his cup on the table. "Hey, dude, no matter how this shakes down, you're going to be okay and your son's going to be okay. Chris stepped up in time. Plenty of military kids get in trouble—just like anybody else's kids. He gave us a heads up on another lead. He's a good kid who got stuck in a bad situation."
"Thanks for looking out for him."
Memories of those days in a Rubistanian cell hummed in the air, whispers of the minor victory they'd all silently celebrated by diverting their captors enough to buy Spike an extra couple of hours before his round of questioning.