Just One Night Together (Flatiron Five Fitness #3) - Deborah Cooke Page 0,29

you, Joe,” Haley said as she got out of the cab. “I think.”

“But you let me know if I’m right,” he called after her. “You offered and I like to keep score.”

The three of them were progressing steadily, shoulder to shoulder. Perez was on the right. Foster in the middle. Buchanan on the left. It was the way they’d done it a thousand times, but it was never routine.

Not a single thing was routine in Afghanistan.

They rounded a corner and froze as one at the sight of a little boy playing in the dusty street. Dressed in rags, dirty, too thin. Perez never got used to seeing these kids, growing up in a war zone and thinking that was normal. It was normal for them, and that was the saddest part of all.

The kid looked up, his gaze dancing over the pair of them, then smiled knowingly. He dropped the toy, turned and ran.

He was going to tell someone they were close.

Foster lifted his weapon to aim.

Perez growled a reminder. “R.O.E.”

Rules of engagement.

The boy was a civilian. He was unarmed. He couldn’t be injured, even if he was going to bring the wrath of hell upon them. The village ahead was suddenly quiet, deserted, ominous. But they had a mission to infiltrate a certain house and capture a known threat. They exchanged a nod and continued.

He heard Buchanan exhale in frustration, but nothing more was said. Perez was the one who followed the rules to the letter. It was the only way to be, as far as he was concerned, and he wasn’t going to argue about it again.

They continued, three in a line, sweeping the street with their gazes. They took four more steps before the grenade landed in the road and rolled toward them. There were houses on either side, undoubtedly filled with civilians.

There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Damon awakened with a scream caught in his throat and his mind filled with the memory of his comrade’s last cry. He was sweating, his heart galloping, the smell of those Afghan streets so vivid that he could have been there again.

But he was home.

And he was still powerless against his foe.

He rolled out of bed, dropped and did a hundred push-ups, fast and hard.

Then he did a hundred more.

He was sitting, back against the wall, muscles trembling, heart still racing, when his phone rang.

Haley shouldn’t look.

How could she not look?

It was three in the morning and Haley was surfing. She checked her email, answered a message from her mom, peeked at her social media, left a comment on a cat picture posted by a college friend. She was stalling and she knew it.

She wasn’t tired.

No. She was exhausted but she knew she wouldn’t sleep.

She had to know.

She opened the browser and went to Google Maps, then typed in the address Joe had given her. The red pin marking the location wasn’t that far away. She knew the street, of course, but not the addresses. She switched from the map to the street view.

It was a perfectly nice little house, not unlike a lot of other houses in the area, and had been photographed on a summer day. It looked about fifty years old, maybe sixty, and was well maintained. A dark blue front door. An enclosed porch and a peaked roof over the second story. A single parking spot in front and a neat little garden along the porch with bright flowers.

Welcoming. Like a home should be.

She switched back to the map and calculated the distance. She could walk there in half an hour or so.

She bookmarked it, then took a deep breath. It wasn’t enough.

She Googled Damon Perez, assuming that he had the same surname as his mom. There were dozens of men with the same name, so she searched on the site for Flatiron Five Fitness. She found the names of the five partners and discovered that she’d been right about his name. There were a few pictures of the founding team but Damon was always at the back or just ducking out of the frame.

It seemed he didn’t like having his picture taken. He looked serious when she could see his face, as if he was participating on sufferance.

His back was always perfectly straight. Three of his partners were guys and they were all fit, but Haley could see the difference in their stance. Only Damon had served. There was a female partner, too, and she was laughing or smiling in every picture.