Explosive Alliance (Wingmen Warriors 9)

Bo waited in the open doorway. He and Tag shared some hellish memories, bonding crap that took them past normal officer and enlisted boundaries. Tag had been there for him right after the shoot down and during their capture. The older man had taken a boot to the ribs to deflect more blows after Bo's hands were broken.

He didn't know what he expected to gain from talking to Tag now. Some fatherly advice maybe? About what? He wasn't even sure.

"You okay?" Tag set the phone on the bedside table.

Was he referring to the emergency landing? Or Paige Haugen? Damn but Tag had a way of fishing with those short questions that left the field wide-open for interpretation.

"Just hanging out, nothing to do. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

Duh. Because he couldn't stop thinking about how Kurt Haugen had held them all hostage in Tag's home until Tag had risked tackling the man while Bo shielded Tag's pregnant wife.

Haugen had hoped to find information about military drug-surveillance flights to offer his mob boss in exchange for a ticket out of organized crime and safe passage to another country. The guy had been obsessed with starting a new life with his wife and daughter, had even discussed how he would trick them into leaving under the guise of a "surprise"

vacation.

His fists clenched at how close Paige had come to a fugitive lifestyle, or an arrest in a foreign country where she could have been left to rot in a hellhole cell. He knew firsthand how much hellhole cells sucked. Relaxing his fists, he worked his wrist back and forth, thankful for the modern technology of surgically inserted metal pins and screws.

"So you're all right." Tag shoved a hand through his salt-and-pepper buzz cut. "Kudos to you then, my friend, because seeing that blast from the past on the flight line had me racing for the phone last night to hear my wife's voice and make sure she's okay. Crazy, huh?"

"Nah, not at all." He slumped against the door frame, one tennis shoe up and flat against the molding.

"Exactly my point. So, I'll say it again. You okay?"

"I'm fine enough. Haugen deserved to go to jail. We weren't the ones who killed him."

Ah, hell, and there was a part of his problem, because he'd wanted to dig Haugen up and kill him again, the father of that somber-eyed little girl. "Even if he'd died that day in the takedown instead of later in jail, we would have been justified. He held a pregnant woman hostage, for crying out loud." Tag, Bo and Tag's son, as well.

Tag's jaw flexed. Hard. "Yes, he did."

Logical, but still hard as hell to reconcile. "A crime's a crime, but somehow it feels worse when women and kids are hurt."

Tag's wife. Their baby.

Kirstie.

Paige.

Damn. His eyes fell away to Tag's latest paperback splayed open on the bed. "Why the hell do I feel so responsible for her and her kid?"

Tag didn't bother asking what woman and which kid. He didn't say anything at all, his knack with silence always prompting more words than a dozen questions.

"I could be spending the next couple of weeks on easy duty baby-sitting the plane while Mako finishes his repairs. Instead I'm going to be humping my butt around in a beat-up Cessna making house calls on sick cows."

Tag studied his clasped hands for long silent moments before words finally rumbled up.

"My wife says one of the fundamental reasons for arguments between men and women is that sometimes women just want to vent. But when men hear about a problem, we start listing ways to fix it and cut short her rant."

"Yeah, so?"

"A woman doesn't necessarily want fixing. Sometimes she just wants to vent so she feels better about what can't be changed."

"And that helps me how?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

"Good God, now you really sound like your counselor wife." He thought of all those mandatory psych evals he and the rest of the crew had been required to attend after the shoot down. Damn but he resented anyone getting too close, crawling inside his head and making him discuss crap that didn't matter anymore.

Tag's weathered face creased with a slow grin. "Counselor? Me? You're lucky I can't punch an officer, sir.">Bo's hand slowed along the sleeping dog's back. "You never did say what her name is?"