Soldier For Hire

“Because I’m paying her a lot of money.”

Scarlett was impressed. “Seriously? I thought that only happened in the movies.”

“Turns out greed is a very real motivator and reporters don’t make jack shit these days so...it’s almost a public service. I’m helping to keep journalism alive.”

“That’s a stretch,” she quipped with a dry smile. “But it works out in your favor that you managed to find a reporter whose integrity was for sale.”

“You’d be surprised how easy those are to find.” Xander winked.

Xander’s reason made a certain level of sense, but a three-hour drive to some abandoned place seemed like a bad idea. They were between a rock and a hard place given it would’ve been personally safer to meet in a public place, but the very thing that made it safe also made it risky.

Scarlett smothered the urge to growl with frustration. She hated feeling vulnerable and went out of her way to ensure that she had the best handle on any given situation, but that wasn’t going to happen with this circumstance. Better get used to it.

“Fine. I need coffee,” Scarlett grumbled, sliding into her jacket, thumbing her nose at the sludge offered in the room. “Whatever that is...is not coffee and I’m going to need the real deal if we’re going on a road trip to BFE.”

Xander crooked a grin that sent tiny sparks straight to her empty belly. “Think of it this way. You get to see parts of Oklahoma you’ve never seen before.”

“Pardon me while I rein in my excitement.”

He laughed. The sound coaxed a grudging smile on her part. That was the thing about Xander; he had this way about him that made people forget why they were pissed at him.

It was that skill that had probably kept him alive all this time.

They climbed into the car, stopped by a roadside stop-and-rob and then hit the road. Three hours in a car with Xander sounded like psychological torture but she’d endured worse.

But when he cranked the country music, she had to reevaluate that assumption.

After twenty minutes of country crooning, she’d had enough and purposefully clicked off the radio. “Look, we should use this time to go over the case,” she said, ready to do something productive.

“I have a better idea, let’s just enjoy the ride,” Xander said.

Scarlett exhaled with mild annoyance. “This isn’t a Sunday outing. I don’t know why I hear the ticking clock more loudly than you, but it’s all I can hear. We need to go over the case until we know it by heart.”

“What makes you think I don’t already?” he said quietly.

Scarlett fell silent, digesting his retort. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve probably gone over the facts in this case until you’re cross-eyed but I can’t just sit in the car, listening to tunes like we’re out for a picnic more than your ass is on the line.”

“I didn’t ask you to come with me,” he reminded Scarlett. He wasn’t being a dick about it, just stating facts. “Maybe I need a break to just coast for a minute.”

She opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. She couldn’t imagine what he’d been going through since the moment he found out someone was gunning for him.

Being former military, it wasn’t hard to slip into that mode where no one outside of your unit was beyond suspicion, but that level of paranoia took a toll on the psyche.

Keeping your head on a swivel at all times did something to you as a human being, which was why most of Red Wolf was comprised of people who found civilian life difficult.

Drawing a deep breath, Scarlett rubbed her palms down her jeans and said, “Okay, we’ll do this your way, for now, on one condition—” she cut Xander a sharp look “—no more country music. It’s classic rock or silence.”

He chuckled. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.”

Xander punched in a rock station and grinned as Scarlett relaxed and nodded in approval as classic rock filled the car.

An hour went by and Scarlett turned the music down.

Xander sent a playful glance her way. “Ready to give country another shot?”

“Hell, no.”

“Okay, well, silence will drive me batty.”

Scarlett suddenly realized it bothered her that she knew what Xander sounded like when he climaxed but she didn’t know much more about him aside from what she’d read in his personnel file.

And he knew more about her than she ever shared with anyone and it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t like she went out of her way to know her team on a personal level, which is why sleeping with one of her team members had been a bad idea, but what was done was done.

And she was a little old-fashioned about some things.

“I need to know more about you, Xander.”

“More? Like what? You’ve read my file. Not much more to tell.”

“Bullshit. You and I both know that’s not an accurate portrait of a person. If I were to go off your psych eval, I would say you’re a narcissistic asshole but I know that’s not true.”

“I’m telling you, that doc had it in for me,” Xander said. “Crack one off-color joke and it’s ‘no soup for you.’”

Scarlett smothered a laugh at his Seinfeld joke. “Okay, so tell me about yourself.”

“Would you like to know what’s on my dating profile?” he teased.

Scarlett blushed and shook her head. “God, no,” she answered quickly, but then a part of her wanted to ask how in the hell he managed to date in their particular line of work. Each time she attempted a dating profile, she ended up sounding like the most generic person in the world because she couldn’t afford to put real details out there on the web. “I mean, tell me how you ended up going the military route.”

Xander frowned, clearly not his favorite bedtime story. She half expected him to decline and change the subject or worse, return the radio to country but he surprised her with an answer.

“Kinda like your story. Dad was an abusive dick. Didn’t have the means to go to college, not that I would’ve been able to handle more school, but the army was my ticket out of hell. I took it without looking back.”

“Is your dad still alive?”

“No. He died when I was overseas. Felt weird to get the message. I mean, I’d prayed for the man’s death more times than I could count when I was growing up but when it actually happened, I was numb. Kinda disappointing, really. That was the biggest reveal. I thought I’d feel more. Relief, maybe? Or joy, even? But nope, I felt nothing. My LT gave me the message and ten minutes later I was back on the job.”

Scarlett understood the numbness Xander had felt. She’d felt the same when her own father had died.

She’d long come to the conclusion that people who were damaged had two choices: wither and die, or deal with it.

Her way of dealing with the abuse at her father’s hands was to walk away and never mention the man’s name ever again.