got something of a hero’s welcome home. Have I mentioned that nap time is my new favorite time of day? I just wish Charlie’d stay asleep a little longer. And I think he’s starting to teethe, so he hasn’t been falling asleep as quickly anymore. Hint, hint?”
I laughed. Message received.
“That was just the funniest thing,” Kelly said as she came back into the room. “Charlie fell right to sleep. He never does that. Although, sometimes babies reach a certain age, and they suddenly nap like clockwork.”
“He’ll probably sleep through the night now, too,” I said.
“Oh, wouldn’t that be nice?”
“It certainly will be,” Tom said with a smile, pulling his wife onto his lap.
“Hey!” She laughed, glancing over at me.
“Suz was just leaving,” Tom told her. He kissed her and snapped his fingers, and the scene faded to black.
TRAPPED
Early 2006
This story takes place shortly after Into the Storm, and before Force of Nature.
Nachtgarten Army Base, Germany
CHAPTER ONE
“So,” Jules Cassidy said, as he tried to cover his best friend and former FBI partner Alyssa Locke more completely with his body. Her leg had been broken in the blast that had trapped them here, and she drew in a sharp breath at the contact, but otherwise didn’t complain. “I finally got some last Thursday night. Go, me.”
She laughed her surprise, her voice rich in the pitch darkness. “Get out of here.”
“Sweetie, I would if I could, and I’d take you with me, too.” Jules quipped as he flipped on his flashlight, because … why not? It was possible their lives were going to end before its batteries wore out. Might as well enjoy the light while they still had eyes with which to see.
“Ben?” Alyssa asked.
“No,” Jules said tartly. “Some stranger that I picked up in a bar. What kind of slut do you think I am? Of course, Ben. God.”
“About time, my no-longer-celibate brothah,” she said.
There was both pain and worry in her eyes, and Jules knew he should continue to try keeping things light, for both of their sakes, but …
“Yeah, I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m feeling … oddly ambiguous about the whole thing.” Especially after the surprise weekend visit from his mother.
“Ben’s really sweet,” Alyssa commented from beneath him.
“Yes, he is.” He’d pulled her as far as he could into the corner of this shallow subterranean room that seemed to be the most structurally sound, behind a pile of bricks and rubble as they waited for the bomb’s timer to count down the last ninety seconds of a five-minute delay.
Please, sweet baby Jesus, don’t let this be their final last ninety seconds. If this didn’t work, if they died here tonight, Alyssa’s husband, former Navy SEAL and total Texas cowboy Sam Starrett, was going to follow Jules up to heaven and kick his ass—right in front of St. Peter and God and Jimmy Stewart and whoever else saintly and pure was standing beside the pearly gates.
And please, Jesus, as long as Jules was making a list of demands, let Sam survive the altercation with the terrorists who’d planted this bomb that was about to explode. Wherever the cowboy-booted one was, please keep him safe, too …
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Jules admitted to the woman who’d been one of his best friends for years, because although light banter was preferred at times like this, an honest heart-to-heart was better than silently wondering about the fate of the other members of the Troubleshooters team. Sam wasn’t the only one out there—Tess, Sophia, and Lindsey were in potential danger from the bad guys, too. “Why haven’t I fallen madly in love with him? The whole time we were … together—and it wasn’t just Thursday, it was Friday night, too—I was … I don’t know. Waiting for the choir of angels to start to sing.” He laughed his disgust. “Have I mentioned that Ben’s into country music? Some of it’s not awful—I’ll admit that. Some of it’s … Okay, I’ll be generous and use the word good. But some of it …? Kill me now.”
That was probably not the right thing to say while waiting for a bomb to go off, but Alyssa either ignored it or didn’t notice.
“Okay, so he’s not perfect,” Alyssa said. “No one is. Sam’s certainly not.” She swore sharply. “If he gets himself killed tonight …”
“Sam’ll be all right,” Jules reassured her with a hug—careful, though, of her leg. “He’s probably going insane, wondering where we are. So tell me this. If Sam’s so imperfect,