“Thanks,” Rixey said as he plated himself two slices. He took a big bite—
“So what did that cute woman want?” Jess asked.
Rixey managed to force the pizza down his throat without choking on it.
Cute? Cute didn’t begin to cut it. Becca Merritt was the all-American girl personified, with her fierce blue eyes and wavy hair the rich color of honey. Bet she tasted as sweet, too. And, damn, that body. It was all he’d been able to do not to gawk at the curves her fitted T-shirt hugged, or trace his eyes over the lace just visible through the thin cotton. It was like the sun had strolled through their front door, casting heat and light all over him. Only the haunted dark circles under her eyes ruined the analogy.
A part of him had felt twice as cold and dark when the door had closed behind her. She’d done just as he’d asked and split, so he didn’t understand the ache of emptiness ballooning inside his chest. No way he was examining it too closely, either.
“Something about her brother being in trouble.” Jeremy’s voice pulled Rixey out of his head. “But she wasn’t here to see me, she was here for Nick. But Nick refused to talk to her, even though she had great taste in T-shirts.”
Jess glanced between them and frowned as she ate. Her arched black eyebrow told Nick everything he needed to know about her opinion on the subject.
Rixey sighed and pushed up from the table, Becca’s hurt and disappointment playing on a loop in his mind’s eye. He grabbed his plate and an extra slice. Seeing her had brought the whole friggin’ mess with her father to the front of his brain. He was shit for company now. The loss of your friends, your career, and your honor did that to a man. Aw, sonofabitch. “I’m gonna take this upstairs.”
He tuned out their voices as he retreated through the back of the shop to the industrial stairwell that led to the upper floors. Jeremy had bought the three-story building with the money their parents left him, and Nick had given him most of his share, too, becoming a silent partner and occasional tattooist in his brother’s business. Not having been there to help Jeremy with everything that went down when their parents died in a car accident four years ago . . . Yeah, it was the least he could do. Literally.
Shit. He was on a roll with the bad memories.
On the second-floor landing, he turned right and keyed in a code. A metallic click sounded, and Rixey pulled open the heavy door to the warehouse-style apartment he shared with his brother. It was supposed to have been a temporary arrangement, but ten months later, he was no damn closer to getting a life because he couldn’t think of anything that came close to replacing the one he’d lost.
Inside, the space still possessed an industrial character, with its brick walls, exposed I beams, high, wide windows, and fifteen-foot ceilings. But Jeremy had done a phenomenal job refurbishing the place and installing modern amenities. Whether it was graphic art, tattoos, or building the interior architecture of their place, the boy had a pair of hands like you hear about. As much of a pain in the ass as Jer could be, Rixey had to give him that.
He crossed the wide living room, with its enormous leather sofa and pair of well-broken-in recliners claimed from their parents’ house, and headed down the hall to his office. He parked himself at his desk, booted up the laptop, and chowed on a slice of pizza while he waited for the login screen to load.
When the thing came to life, Rixey pulled up an internet browser and typed in Becca’s name. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for, but something she’d said had dug its talons into his frontal lobe and refused to let go. “They’re not helping us.” Not me but us. Who the hell was the “us”? Just the brother she’d mentioned? A husband? A kid? Man, two of the three of them gave him a real gut check he had no business feeling.
More distracting was the niggling question of how and why the Merritts would come to him, of all people. He didn’t expect them to know that bad blood flowed like a river after a hard rain between him and their father’s fabricated fallen-hero memory—they’d have no reason to, since the Army prettied that sitch up real good for public consumption. The bigger question was how they knew about Rixey at all. Or why they thought he was the best person to help.
None of it made any friggin’ sense.
And, so what? Why the hell did he care? He owed Frank Merritt absolutely nothing. And his daughter even less.
True. But Rixey couldn’t deny a kind of morbid curiosity about how the daughter of the man who’d ruined his life came to stand in his shop and ask him—of all people—for help.
Scrolling through the search results, listings appeared for Merritts by both the names of Becca and Rebecca. He ruled out the ones who lived too far away or had pictures that clearly weren’t his Becca. His? No. Not at all what he meant. For fuck’s sake.
In the end, he narrowed it down to one of two possibilities. The Becca who was an emergency department nurse at University Medical Center, or the Rebecca who was a kindergarten teacher at a private day school in the city. The woman he’d met seemed the sweet, nurturing type, the kind who brought warmth and comfort to others, so both jobs fit the bill. Rixey opened up the people search page and gathered some possibilities for address.
Why was he doing this again? He didn’t need her address if he had no intention of tracking her down, seeing her . . . helping her.
No. He just needed to convince himself she was safe. He’d devoted a dozen years of his life to Mother Army because he wanted to help people—and something about Becca had resurrected that desire after nearly a year of lying dormant. Once, he’d idolized Colonel Merritt, his former commander, before it had all gone to shit. So, fine. It wasn’t any skin off his nose to spend an evening checking things out. It wouldn’t be like the process server jobs he did where confrontation was part of the gig. For this, he’d stay on the periphery, out of sight. Rixey excelled at not being seen unless he wanted to be seen. What the hell else did he have to do anyway?
And wasn’t that cheery thought just par for the mothereffing course?
Whatever. It was just a little surveillance to make sure his curiosity didn’t keep him up all night—like he needed one more thing.
Printouts in hand, Rixey stalked into his bedroom and changed into a pair of black cargo pants. He secured his ankle carrier and sheathed a blade, then shrugged the holster onto his left shoulder over his tee. He knelt in front of the open closet door and entered the code on his gun safe. The M9 felt like an old friend in his grip. He inspected the piece, holstered it, and slipped a spare magazine into the pocket on his thigh. Jacket, keys, phone, and addresses in hand, he made his way through the apartment and out the back entrance of the building. Last thing he wanted was to play twenty questions with Jeremy and Jess.
The gravel of the parking lot crunched under his boots. The last light of day held on for everything it was worth, casting bright pinks and dark purples across the twilight sky. But the old warehouse veiled the lot in thick shadows, making the black Challenger, except for its silver racing stripes, nearly fade into the dusky murk. Man, he loved that car. After a dozen years of humping it around in armored vehicles built for stability, not comfort, he’d promised himself something sleek, fast, and kind to the ass once he joined the ranks of the civilians.
He’d just never expected that to happen quite so soon. Or against his will.
Goddamnit.
Rixey dropped into the driver’s seat and took all kinds of satisfaction in the growling rumble of the car’s engine. Small pleasures, man, but these days, he’d take ’em where he found ’em.