Definitely not with Kennedy.
I was out of the Navy now. No longer chasing my brothers hoping to be included with the big boys. I was a big boy, minus the penis.
“Thanks, Kennedy. I think I just need to cool down.”
“Over here.” He instantly propelled me, not toward the back of the ambulance, which I would’ve hated, but to the shade of a tree at the edge of the parking lot. Ford and Hayes stepped away, thankfully not wanting to hover.
The two of us leaned our backs against the bark, and I relaxed as he opened the granola bar Megan had tossed him as we made our way here. He unwrapped it and held it out to me.
I took a bite and chewed. “I scared you, didn’t I?” I poked him with my elbow. “You were yelling like I’d been shot down over enemy land.”
Kennedy chuckled. “Scared the hell out of me,” he admitted.
“Now we’re both going to have to live this down.”
“Nope,” Kennedy said, shaking his head. “No one’s going to rib you for this without me breaking noses.”
I twisted my head to peer up at him. Those dimples and his cocky swagger made him appear laid back. Friendly, even. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t just as capable of violence as any SEAL. I’d seen him in action. I knew what he could do.
And it seemed he intended to use it to protect me. My feelings.
Part of me wanted to fall back on my usual, immediate protest that I certainly didn’t need him to defend me, but the other part kept me silent.
The part that marveled at the fact that Kennedy seemed almost…attached.
Like I meant something to him.
More than hot sex on a sweaty night.
Kennedy was showing me a side of him I didn’t know existed, and it took my breath away.
I leaned my head against his very sturdy shoulder. “Thanks, Kennedy.”
For once in my life, having someone look after me didn’t feel like an insult. It felt like the highest form of praise.
“Anytime, Flyer. Anytime.”
CHAPTERNINE
KENNEDY
I tossedmy lollipop stick in the trash can at my feet. I was frustrated because I’d been working on my computer for two hours and had zero luck. Not just this morning but for weeks–months, even–looking for any bit of information that might clear Ford. I spent the bulk of my downtime at my desk searching.
I hadn’t even found the intel on Tully. He’d come to us. Indi had been snooping around on her own before she hooked up with Ford, not believing that her brother, Buck, had done the things the military had told her and her parents after he’d died.
No way was the man a murderer. Part of a drug ring. It was too ridiculous to imagine for Buck to do. He had been too fucking honorable. When Ford started looking into it, not taking the military at their word, he’d been discharged under a shitty excuse. That, of course, had driven him to create Alpha Mountain Security, not only to build the best merc team outside of the SEALs, but also to get the best together to figure out what the fuck had been going on.
It had been Indi’s searches that had brought her to Tully’s attention. He’d come to Montana to track her down. To kill her because she had proof that her brother was innocent. Buck had sent it to her to keep safe. She had, and she’d kept herself alive from Tully.
The memory card Buck had sent her had cleared him. Given him an honorable discharge, posthumously, and redeemed him.
Ford, though, hadn’t been cleared.
The charges against him didn’t drop away. His honor was still tainted, and none of us could stand for it.
So I’d been trying, and fucking trying, to find something as to who Tully’s boss was. Since Tully was dead, he wasn’t talking. Whoever had pulled his strings had ensured all incriminating data was gone. There was nothing to find.
“Still searching?” Mrs. L asked, coming into the command room–her sewing room–and settled in her high-backed chair. There were crocheted doilies on the armrests and a basket of yarn beside the chair.