Now, oh, we’d have playtime, but she’d come first and often. That would happen after we took care of shit with her dad, and I made sure her head was on straight. Because while I was out of the SEALs, I could call in a wet team to make even an admiral disappear.
Yeah, I was that into Quincy.
After tacos at The Shack, which were as amazing as I remembered, we took a rideshare to her parents’ house, which was an immaculately kept place on the golf course.
“This is where you grew up, huh?” I looked around, trying to imagine a younger Quincy living here, chasing after her older brothers, wanting to be included.
“Yep.” She sounded stiff and her lips pressed together in a thin line as she surveyed the house. Her energy had already shifted, like she was on lockdown emotionally. I recognized it because I did it myself when I saw my own parents. A rare occurrence, but it happened more than I wanted.
“Treat it like a mission,” I said softly as we walked to the door. “In and out, and no one gets hurt.”
She gave a humorless laugh as the door flew open, and a woman in her sixties rushed out and threw her arms around Quincy. “Melissa! I’m so happy to see you. When Dad said you were coming… oh, I couldn’t believe it. How long can you stay?”
Admiral Mason stood in the doorway with his arms crossed over his massive chest. He wasn’t in uniform, but his khaki pants had creases as sharp as dress whites.
Her mom broke the embrace and urged Quincy toward the door as she extended a hand to me with a warm, friendly smile. “Hi, I’m Janet. I didn’t know Melissa was bringing a friend.”
I saw where Quincy got her warmth and openness from because it wasn’t from her dad. But she got his dark hair and eyes. There was no question she was his daughter.
“Teammate,” Quincy corrected, and I winced, but then as I shook Janet's hand, Quincy added, “Well, yes. He’s a friend, too.” She moved on to give her dad a stilted hug. His arm went around her back and patted as if she might be wearing an IED.
The admiral was staring at me as he did so. His gaze narrowed on me, assessing. “Chief Warrant Officer Chase Berghart. Navy SEAL. Son of Maryland Senator Joe Berghart. Did not re-enlist after his commanding officer Ford Ledger was dishonorably discharged.”
He had done his research. Either he’d accessed TSA records and had my name that way, or he had intel on all the guys at Alpha Mountain Security. I assumed the latter.
“Yes, sir.” I offered my hand to him to shake, and he took a moment before slowly deigning to grasp it. When he did, I suspected he was trying to crack my bones with his grip. I just gave him my most easy-going smile in return.
Compared to warlords or drug kingpins, an aging admiral was a walk in the park. The only land mines around here were anything I might say that would put shit onto Quincy.
“You should have cleared bringing members of your team with me first,” he scolded Quincy.
“We work as a team. And, my boss sent him,” Quincy said dryly, both reminding him that she no longer was in the military, and she answered first to someone else now.
“Well,” the admiral said, sounding put out. “Your mom will want to have some time with you first.”
“What can I get you both to drink?” Janet asked bustling us through the tidy, upper-middle-class house and into the kitchen. “Are you both staying the night?” She glanced at the bags we’d pulled from the car. We’d both packed light–Quincy had a backpack, and I had a small carry-on with my computer and a change of clothes. If the admiral’s intel had any merit, I wanted to dig into it right away.
“We leave at 0600 tomorrow,” Quincy answered. “And, no, we will be staying in a hotel.”
Both her parents seemed startled by that information. I watched the reassessment happening behind their eyes as they looked from Quincy to me.
I desperately wanted to claim Quincy in front of them. To put my hand on her back and show her she had my full support. But I also didn't want to overstep. This was her familial home, and it was up to her how she wanted to play this. I’d dealt with higher-ups before, but not when one was my woman’s father.
We might be in a relationship and considered ourselves exclusive, that had been to deal with the Lee Landers and redheaded waitresses, not parents.
“Well, business first then,” the admiral said. He tipped his head toward the hallway, and we followed him into a stately masculine office. The desk was neat, nothing out of place. I had to guess if he made his own bed, the corners would be precise, and he’d bounce a quarter off it each morning.
When I compared the house and this office to our current temporary headquarters–essentially Mrs L's sewing room that we'd taken over–the differences were laughable. Still, Ford was no less of an imposing presence or dignified leader than the admiral.
Hell, he had the skills, the connections, lacked the rules and regs, and made a shit ton more money. So did I. Quincy, too.
“Have a seat,” he instructed, taking his place behind the great oak desk. Quincy and I sat in the chairs in front of it.
“What did you find out?” Quincy asked, getting right to the point.
The admiral caged his hands together and gave us both another stare down. “Well, nothing definitive. But whatever David Buchanan got himself into, it’s big, and it goes all the way up the chain of command.”
It was still hard to hear about what happened to Buck. I hadn’t grown up with him like Ford had, but he’d been my teammate for years. A friend. Losing him, or anyone as close as we’d been, was hell.