Mastered By The Mavericks(28)

She hated-hated-being cavalier about it, but it seemed her only safe  path to some semblance of emotional stability. "Semblance" was the right  word for it, too, because their tense blood with each other hadn't  stopped either of them from warming more of hers-and endearing  themselves deeper on just about every level.

Just as disconcerting? On most of those occasions, the gorgeous bastards  weren't even trying. Like the morning she'd spied on Rebel as he  tackled the parkour run in Dax's gym, providing his own sportscaster  commentary-landing himself in first place, of course. And the night  she'd overheard Rhett in the shower, belting every perfectly memorized  word of Welcome to the Jungle. Then there was Rebel's laughter, given  with all of himself, at her stupidest jokes-and Rhett's "innocent" grin  when he'd pranked her gullible side.

Those events were easier to write off than the purposeful ones, like the  way Rhett drove ten miles to find a store that carried her beloved  hazelnut coffee creamer, and the afternoon Rebel had brought handpicked  wildflowers to ease her grief that they hadn't found Zoe on the camera  feed yet.

Zoe.

There was her hugest reason to keep the distance from the guys. Good  news: she wasn't about to forget it; not with the endless ache in her  stomach and the constant tear at her soul. Didn't stop her from being  damn glad that the guys were bunking across the house. The few hours of  sleep she allowed herself each night were the key to staying alert  during her shift in front of the monitors.

Now, it was time to get to work again.

That meant shutting off the swoony recollections of Sergeants Stafford  and Lange, and focusing her mind completely on what mattered.

Please, God … grant me insight about this. The right kind this time.

So many times, she was sure they'd found Royce or Adler themselves-as if  evil geniuses had a certain "walk" and she'd surely recognized it by  now-but the urgent strides had always belonged to a scared minion or  determined perimeter guard, on their way to some computer room or post.  Rhett, Rebel and she still hadn't found the one location in the place  they needed to learn about: the exact location where those assholes were  hiding Zoe.

While washing her face in the en suite bathroom, she grimaced into her  hands. Gulped away tears. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She had no right to  this frustration and sorrow when Zoe was living on a diet of the stuff,  alone and terrified somewhere in that building, wondering if she'd ever  be free-or alive-again.                       
       
           



       

Hang on, Zo. Please hang on.

She hitched up the pink T-shirt she'd worn to bed long enough to throw  on a bra and apply fresh deodorant, not bothering to change out of her  pajama bottoms. She'd showered before bed, knowing that right now, all  she'd want to do was return to the office-though the fact that Rhett  hadn't woken her up yet wasn't encouraging at all. If he'd found  something, he'd have called her cell from the office. After brushing her  hair into a fast ponytail-now was no time for vanity-it was time to get  the update on what the mouse had discovered in the last five hours.

Progress. Please God, just one more favor … let it be some kind of progress.

She wasn't surprised to enter the living room and see only Rebel's  mussed bedding on the couch. The pirate had started to stir when she  went off to bed, having logged only two hours of sleep himself. By now,  that wasn't a surprise. Despite their charming moments, the vibe from  both men this week had been, in a word, restless. Perhaps even hyper. It  wasn't normal for them. She knew it was silly to be so certain of it,  but she was. The truth was emblazoned across both their faces, a far  different thing than the tinkles they attempted as remnants of their  earlier pissing match. This was something … strange. And different. For  them both.

Could she be off the mark? Possible but not probable. Though she'd spent  only sparse time with both of them before now, there was also a reason  the field of psychology was a perfect fit for her. The gut instincts she  relied on for everything from dancing to cooking were especially  accurate when it came to people.

So why was this mission weirding them both out?

Part of that replay was obvious. They usually didn't have to deal with a  mission tag-along, especially one who'd redefined "break the ice" with  them both inside the first twenty-four hours of the op. But her  intuition insisted there was more. Something about their dynamic had  little to do with her or the demands of the mission, and everything to  do with the demands of their relationship.

If that was even what it was …

Was that what was going on? And had her … "fun" … with them become a fly in their ointment?

The questions were jarring. Certainly not because she had an issue with  them as a couple-they were actually damn stunning together-but if they'd  lied to her about their significance to each other, especially in light  of the passion, intimacy, and orgasms she'd given to both … well, now  they all had a problem.

Though it sounded like the guys had just hunted up a fresh one of those for themselves.

She stopped as the f word was bellowed so loud, it made the hallway's  glass walls tremble. Should she proceed? She felt like one of those  too-stupid-to-live ingénues in a horror movie, investigating the bump in  the darkest part of the woods.

As she neared the office, another snarl erupted on the air. Fortunately,  this one didn't sound like King Kong with a tack in his paw. The words  added onto it pegged the speaker as Rhett.

"Moon, you've got to calm the hell down."

A bunch of pounding steps. More animalistic breaths. "That's easy for  you to say, isn't it? You're not the one who just blew this mission."

Her brows slammed together. What the hell? The mission was blown? Why? How?

"Okay, chill. We have no idea what happened. You know there are probably a thousand explanations why-"

"Why what?" She made the demand from the doorway. Spying from the  hallway wasn't going to cut it anymore. The pain in Reb's voice wrenched  her as much as what he'd said. But now that both the guys spun toward  her, she wasn't sure that was the right call, either. Aside from their  tight black T-shirts and low-slung sweats, they looked like hell. No,  worse. Like they'd been to hell, tried to climb out then kept getting  tossed back in to give Satan his jollies.

Rhett released the first resigned breath. Past a steeled jaw, he gritted, "The mouse cam went dark."

She drummed her fingers against her thighs. Sent back a look of  bewilderment, though her heart thudded an equally urgent tattoo. "So  what does that mean?"

Rebel swung an arm toward the live feed monitors, both now black. "See  for yourself. It means we're fucking blind, is what it means."

Brynn shook her head. Wondered why she wasn't throwing herself over into  the same hell pit as them. "So we just reboot it or something … right?"

"Tried," Rhett supplied. "And failed."

"Which means what?"

"Any number of things. Perhaps Adler's boys finally detected the unit somehow, then snuck up and disabled it."                       
       
           



       

"Highly unlikely, since the last piece of footage would have shown the  unit being picked up and examined." Rebel sagged against the wall and  clawed a hand through his hair. "Even if those goons figured out the  unit was there, they'd have to fish around for a power switch."

"Theoretically." Brynn hated saying it, but the premise made sense.  "When El's nieces come over to play, I have trouble finding the power  buttons on their toys, and I can see those." Five minutes with one's  thumb up Twilight Sparkle's butt wasn't an experience easily forgotten.

Rebel rammed his head all the way back against the wall. "Which leads us back to the only possible explanation."

"Which is what?" She didn't like saying that, either. Revision: she  hated it. Felt like she'd been drafted to the Spanish Inquisition and  been told to drill a steel peg through his leg. Same difference, judging  from the pain on his face.

"Primary battery life on the thing is three days," he muttered. "You  have to program the thing to activate the backup battery-a manual  procedure after the unit is turned on."

She absorbed that with careful silence. "And you're not sure if you did that."

His face contorted like that was the second steel peg. "Fucking. Idiot."

"Shut. Up." Rhett wheeled back fully toward his partner. "You perform  surgery on bombs, Stafford, not cameras. You're used to being given  space, silence and longer lead times for your work, instead of guards,  alarms, and deadlines breathing down your business. Cut yourself some  fucking slack and let's move on with a new plan."