“No way,” Riley whispered. “This was my idea. I’m going with you.” She wasn’t about to admit she felt a little squeamish standing in the woods by herself in the pitch black dark of midnight. There could be…creatures and crawling things. Some things she was fine being a girly girl about.
She couldn’t make out Liam’s face in the shadows, but his long silence suggested he probably knew it.
“Fine. We’ll come back for the cargo. Step where I step, and test each one before you put your full weight down.”
Riley fell into careful step behind him.
Heeled sandals were absolutely not the correct footwear for a covert operation. The flirty sundress was hardly appropriate either, but going by her apartment to change would’ve meant running into her mother. There was no explanation for why she needed to be dressed in black from head-to-toe that Riley cared to give. The whole point of this mission was secrecy.
A single light burned in the back of the little one-story house. Tara, probably, taking some rare time to herself or maybe figuring out how she was going to make ends meet for another month. Riley was well-familiar with that kind of late night.
They crossed the yard at what felt like a slow crawl, until Liam finally motioned her to press up against the side of the house. He eased through the weedy flowerbed. Riley followed until they both crouched beneath the edge of the lit window. Using hand signals that she could only presume meant raise up slowly, Liam turned to face the house. Like a pair of cartoon robbers, they moved in sync, unbending just enough that they could peer in.
Tara sat on a stool at some kind of work bench, an oversized t-shirt slipping off one shoulder. A bright desk lamp illuminated the small tools, wire, and other detritus scattered across the surface. Her jewelry making station, Riley realized. The long artist’s fingers twisted and fastened, picking up a tool here, a component there, then checking the overall composition beneath a large magnifying glass mounted with a spring clamp to the lamp. A satisfied smile spread across her face, and, for once, she actually looked her age. As they watched, she set aside whatever she was working on and turned out the desk lamp, before crossing to the bed in the corner.
Liam tapped Riley’s arm and motioned back toward where they’d left the supplies. As they made their way back toward the woods, the last light went out.
“We wait ten minutes. Let her get good and settled, slide on into sleep. Then we make our move.”
“You’re good at all this stealth stuff,” Riley whispered.
“Ought to be. Nice not to have to do it while worrying about IEDs or mortars.”
Riley closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She’d been making a concerted effort not to think about what he’d faced in the Middle East. After twelve years of worrying about it, that part of his life was finished. Thank God.
Liam’s hand tangled with hers. “You okay?”
“I used to keep a map.”
“Of what?”
“The world. Every time we got an update on you or your brothers, I’d note down where you were supposed to be. But given Jack is military intelligence and Cruz is a sniper, we usually didn’t know where they were, so it was mostly you. I’ve got a record of your entire service. What we knew of it, anyway.”
He tugged her against him. The cheek he pressed to hers was a little bit rough with stubble, but the way he held her was anything but. “I’m sorry I worried you. I don’t know if it would’ve changed anything if I’d known, but I’d have at least made more of an effort to let you know I was okay.”
Riley pressed her face into his shoulder, holding him tight. “I know it’s been hard on you, but I’m so glad you’re out.”
“I thought about writing you.”
“Really?”
“A hundred times. I kept that letter you wrote with me all the time. Read it and reread it until it fell apart and had to be taped back together.”
The idea that the words she’d written him in anger had been a constant companion to him in battle made her vaguely ill. “Why? Why on earth would you want to reread a guilt trip?”
“That wasn’t the part I reread. Not most of the time, anyway.”
That only left one part.
“Do you remember?” he asked softly.
As if she could forget. “Take care of yourself, Liam Montgomery. You’d better come home safe to all the people who love you, or I’ll never forgive you.”
Liam stroked a hand through her hair, tipping her face up toward his. “I took comfort in the idea that you might be one of them. That’s why I wore the medallion all these years. I didn’t think you’d have given up a piece of your dad if you weren’t.”
She was. Of course she was. She always had been. And she’d never been able to handle it.
Riley closed her eyes. “God, I’m glad you didn’t see me before you got out. I was hateful to you. I wouldn’t have wanted you to take that back out into the field.”