He and his wife risked their lives for a living—that wasn’t going to change—but they could no longer risk them both at the same time.
And that sucked.
But it also didn’t suck—again, because of Ash.
“We’ll be fine,” Sam told the woman who was not just the love of his life, but the best team leader he’d ever had. She was commanding, decisive, cool under pressure, compassionate, intelligent, and hot as hell when she barked out orders. Yeah, he was going to miss working with her on this op, too. But he’d survive. “We’re gonna be okay.”
“I know that.” Lys managed a smile as she locked Ash
into the frontpack she wore, so she could carry those strollers while Sam humped it with the car seats and their carry-ons.
Together, with Max and Gina leading the way, with Jules and Robin on their heels, Sam and his family went into the airport’s crowded terminal—assuming this rusting and ancient World War II–era Quonset hut could be called a terminal.
It was cooler inside, but only slightly. The building wasn’t air conditioned, and the big fans overhead spun slowly, lazily. Sam could see the fading red paint of a sign for gate one on the other side of the structure.
“I just really wanted to help get you settled,” Lys told him as they threaded their way through the crowd of locals, most of whom wore the unmistakable white robes that identified them as monks, their shaved heads gleaming in the cheap fluorescent lighting. “And I
really
don’t like leaving you here. Tarafashir was
not
part of the plan.
We
shouldn’t be the ones to leave first.”
“We’re gonna be okay,” Sam said again. “Our flight’s in just a few hours. Those of us who are small will change our diapers, those who are bigger will get something to eat that’s hopefully neither dog or goat, and we’ll all stretch our legs. We’ll be fine, and then we’ll be in a resort hotel on a private island in the Aegean sea.”
Alyssa, Jules, and Max, however, would be
not
in a seaside resort hotel. They’d be in landlocked Afghanistan, sleeping in barracks or maybe even in drafty tents. They’d barely have time, after touching down in Kabul, to grab a meal before they went wheels up again, this time to the first of a half dozen FOBs—remote military forward operating bases in the mountains. The chosen FOBs were all regular stops on the standard USO tour, and the President was determined to visit at least one of them during his upcoming trip.
As members of the special advance advisory team in
charge of providing information to ensure the President’s security during his impending visit, they would have to evaluate them all.
Over at gate one, Max had set down the various pieces of luggage he’d been carrying, and was group-hugging his wife and children. It wasn’t until he kissed Gina that Sam realized exactly what Jules had said.
I just wanted at least to be able to say goodbye properly
.
Jules’s wanting to say goodbye properly had nothing to do with time, and everything to do with the fact that while Tarafashir was ruled by a U.S. approved monarch-slash-dictator, and while visiting Americans were treated with respect, the royal family and governing body was socially conservative, and homosexuality was illegal.
And
that
meant that even though Jules and Robin were lawfully wed in the state of Massachusetts, saying goodbye with a PDA more extreme than a handshake was likely to get them thrown into jail.
And that—a goodbye said with a handshake—was
not
okay with Sam.
Not while there was a chance—a slim one, but definitely a chance—that Jules wouldn’t return from this mission.
So Sam unloaded the car seats next to Max and Gina, who were still lost in their own private world, and he quickly kissed Alyssa on the mouth. “Don’t get on that plane until I get back.”
She laughed at that. “I won’t, because I’m not taking Ash to Afghanistan.”
“Good.” He grabbed Jules with one hand, and Robin with the other, and pulled them over toward the obvious international sign for the men’s head. The bathroom was a single-seater with a door that didn’t lock. Pushing it open, Sam saw that it was, at least, empty.
“Tech check,” he said to Jules, who nodded his understanding as he ushered Robin inside, closing the door tightly behind them.
Sam then stood in front of that door, arms folded across his chest, his message clear to everyone despite the potential language barrier:
Find another bathroom. This one’s taken
.
C
HAPTER
T
WO
“Tech check?” Robin repeated, confused as Jules closed the men’s room door behind them.
No doubt Jules had understood Cowboy Sam’s cryptic message, because he was scanning the ceiling and the walls, and even looking along the concrete floor and behind the toilet that hadn’t been cleaned. Ever.
“No surveillance cameras,” he told Robin. “We’re good.”
“Ah.”
Now
he understood. And it seemed a shame to waste the privacy that Sam had conjured up for them, but there were things Robin needed to say. “I know I’m not supposed to tell you to be careful. I’m supposed to say
be safe
.”
“I will be,” Jules said as he pulled Robin into his arms. “Both as careful and as safe as I can manage.”
Which was great, but in reality, that might not be careful and safe enough to bring him home alive.
Two trips to Afghanistan ago, Jules had come perilously, heart-stoppingly close to coming home in a body bag.
One
trip to Afghanistan ago, Robin didn’t eat or sleep the entire time that Jules was gone.
“I love you,” he managed to say now.
“I don’t have to do this,” Jules started to tell him, but Robin cut him off.
“Yeah, you do. And I’m gonna be okay. Sam and Gina need me to help with the kids. It’s going to be fun.”
Jules laughed. “You’re a terrible liar.”
Robin corrected himself. “It’s going to be as fun as it possibly can be.”
“Hmmm,” Jules said as he looked at Robin.
“Call me,” Robin said. “Or email. As often as you can.”
“I hate doing this to you. Putting myself in danger. It’s not worth—”
“Oh yes it is.” Robin cut him off. “It’s worth it.
You’re
worth it. You’re
you
. I love you for being you. Why would I want you to be anyone but who you are?”
Jules’s beautiful brown eyes welled with emotion. “God, I love you,” he whispered.
“Then kiss me, babe,” Robin said. “And then go get on that plane.”
And Jules did.
C
HAPTER
T
HREE
“I’m sorry, what?” Sam turned to look at Gina, who was the closest thing he had to a languages expert in his current six-person team.
It was a team that consisted of an eight-month-old, a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and two twenty-somethings who were hopelessly in love with their partners—partners who’d recently left for a war zone.
And that meant that Sam’s team’s major skill sets were eating, pooping, crying, and/or trying not to cry or otherwise appear worried so as not to frighten the super-short team members.
Of course, none of the short people were fooled by the badly hidden stress levels. Certainly not Emma, who was looking pale and was watching Sam glumly
with those eyes that reminded him a little too much of her father.
Max had tried to hook up with Alyssa back when Sam was married to his first wife, Mary Lou, and … Or maybe it was Alyssa who’d tried to hook up with Max back when Max was trying desperately to keep his distance from Gina because she was nearly twenty years his junior.
It had all been a screaming charlie-foxtrot, and even though Sam had had no right to be jealous, considering he had been married to another woman at the time, seeing Max reminded him of that time of pain. And the fact that mini-Maxine here was the spitting image of her father was vaguely disturbing.
Yeah. This was going to be one long month—not counting the next apparently-destined-to-be-insanely-grueling twenty-four hours of ongoing travel.
“He said our flight’s been canceled due to …” Gina, who was possibly even paler than her daughter, repeated the heavily accented words uttered by the heavily accented man behind the World Airlines counter.
But it was Robin who understood the last part. “Weather,” he inserted. “The incoming flight from Tunisia’s been canceled—and that’s the plane we were supposed to leave on, so our flight’s been canceled, too. The next flight to Athens isn’t until …
When?
”
Gina leaned toward the counterman, her expression echoing Robin’s dismay. “I’m sorry, did you just say
Thursday
?”
It was Monday. Late Monday—almost Tuesday, but still, sadly, Monday.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Robin’s voice went up an octave.
In Sam’s arms, Ash started to cry. He may not have understood all of the words, but he clearly got the tone. “Shhh,” Sam soothed him, automatically starting to
rock. “We’re okay. It’s okay, Little Bit. We’ll figure this out.”
Meanwhile, Robin was getting taller, looming over the airline representative. “Oh, no,” he said. “No, no. No.” He was an actor, and was usually low-key, but in times of stress he was capable of going big with the drama. “Thursday? No. No, no. We’ll take your next flight. Tonight. To anywhere.”
“Pakistan,” the man said. To give him credit, he was trying to be helpful. But he was mostly clueless.
“Except there.”
“Libya?”
Gina made a guttural sound of intense pain. “Or there,” Robin said.
“Tomorrow morning,” the man told them in the lilting accent that Sam was starting to be able to understand, “we have a flight to Roma. At … six-oh-five.”
That was only seven hours away. And Rome was marginally closer to Athens. Sam spoke up. “We’ll take it.”
“But … alas, my friends, only two seats are available.”
Of course. “Please find the next flight with the number of seats that we need.” Sam forced himself to be patient and to not jump over the counter and look at the computer monitor himself.
“Two-seventeen
P.M
.,” the man said but his triumph quickly faded. “But, oh, that takes you back to London.”
“London works,” Robin said. He looked from Gina to Sam. “I was there just a few months ago. I know a great hotel where they’ll upgrade us to the presidential suite. I mean, if it’s not occupied. We can take a few days to decompress, take showers please God, get some sleep and some real food, and then, when we’re human again, we can get a direct flight to Athens.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Sam said.
“But we’ll need to get our luggage now,” Gina chimed in, “and the name of a safe hotel near this airport, where we can spend the night.”
Sam shook his head. “I know it’s not ideal,” he told her, “but it’s best if we just hunkered down—”
Gina was already shaking her head.
Sam lowered his voice, leaned toward her. “Gina, I know it’s not going to be easy to—”
“Oh, God.” Gina pivoted and thrust Mikey at Robin. “Take him, take him,
take
him. Emma, stay with Robin and Sam!”
As they all watched—Counterman was wide-eyed, too—Gina bolted for the ladies’ room. Halfway there, she realized she wasn’t going to make it, so she veered toward a trash can and …
A group of about a half a dozen monks had been walking serenely past, but now they all did a very sharp about-face and stepped up their pace, hustling away.
It was almost funny.
But Emma started to cry.
And Sam turned away. He had to. He was a sympathy vomiter—puking people were his kryptonite—and his last few badly cooked and too-greasy meals were flashing before his eyes. That cheeseburger, those onion rings … Holy
fuck
, this was going to be bad.
But Robin knew Sam pretty damn well. “Let’s get the kids more mobile so I can go help Gina,” he said, morphing smoothly from outraged drama queen to calm, efficient team leader, as he handed Mikey off to Sam. “You focus on getting the luggage and some hotel recommendations from Mr. Mumbles.”
It was a good idea—at least the part in which Robin played nurse and Sam avoided playing nurse. He burped and tasted fish and chips. “We should stay here, in the airport,” Sam started to say, refreshing his grip on both babies.
“That’s not an option, Sam,” Robin said flatly as he expertly unfolded Gina’s double stroller. “Not anymore.”
This was going to be noisy. Ash was still in that cry-at-the-drop-of-a-hat place, and Mikey was in full-on pre-wail, having been passed from his mom to Robin to Sam, his mouth in that telltale infinity symbol shape of doom. Putting the boys into the stroller was going to detonate both of them. Guaranteed. But it would free up Sam’s hands, and he was going to need his hands while Robin’s were full of Gina.
“Have you seen those public bathrooms?” Robin continued. “Forget about the fact that there are probably laws forbidding men going into the ladies’ room, I am
not
letting Gina near that toilet. We need two rooms with two private bathrooms, preferably bed bug free but even
that
is negotiable at this point.”
Sam had to ask, “Is Gina …?”
Pregnant again?
He didn’t say it, but Robin understood.
He made an
I honestly don’t know
face as he helped Sam secure both Mikey and Ash with the stroller’s seat belts.
“Please God, don’t let it be the flu,” Sam muttered, and Robin actually laughed.
“Oh, wouldn’t
that
be great,” he said then raised his voice. “Emma, come here, pumpkin-girl. We’re gonna need you to push the scream-team in a big circle, around and around and around our luggage. Can you do that for me, buddy? So I can help your mommy with her tummy ache?”
Emma nodded, still sniffling. “My tummy hurts, too.”
“I know, baby,” Robin said soothingly. “We’re all tired and hungry and a little bit cranky. So why don’t you just rock ’em instead. Just back and forth, like this.
Okay? And maybe you could sing them that song I taught you, remember …?”
“We’ll need our luggage,” Sam told the man behind the counter, raising his voice to be heard over Mike’s and Ash’s indignation, which was—hallelujah—fading a bit with Emma’s help.