He then left the room, locked up behind him and strolled back to his own.
* * *
An hour later, his phone rang. He looked from the window to it and took the call.
“Yo, Ol,” he greeted.
“Yo, bro, how’s things?” Olly replied.
“I’m out of town on a job.”
There was a beat before he heard Olly chuckle and his friend said, “That doesn’t tell me much, Branch.”
“You like work?” Branch asked.
“Most the time, yeah,” Olly answered.
“Well, sometimes I like mine but most of the time it sucks.”
“Like, I’m guessin’, now,” Olly deduced.
Branch let his silence be his answer.
“Probably this time it’s mostly about the fact it isn’t fun the first time you’re away from Evangeline,” Olly noted semi-accurately.
Mostly his work just sucked.
Or at least who he did it for.
His answer to that was, “I’ll be back soon.”
“Yeah,” Olly muttered.
“Man, if you’re calling to talk about that breathing mop Amélie wants Angie to adopt—”
“No, brother, Evangeline told us last night she’s gonna get a dog and a cat so Leigh’s good to cool her jets on that.”
“Excellent,” Branch replied.
“Now she’s on about bein’ worried you and Evangeline haven’t asked us to dinner, or opened it up for Leigh to ask you two to our place. So give a brother a break and get your ass over here for her cooking. I barely survived her campaign to get you guys some pets. I’m not sure I can make it through an all-out offensive to get you over here to eat her food.”
Get you guys some pets.
“Trust me,” Olly kept on, “you’ll wanna eat her cooking. I’ll talk her into making you her chili. She uses filet mignon instead of ground beef. And Branch, man, it’s staggering.”
Get you guys some pets.
“Branch?” Olly called.
“Damian showed last night,” he stated.
Ol’s voice went low. “Yeah, I heard. I was tied up, literally, or I would have intervened. But Leigh and I waited. She told me Damian usually comes early and has a few drinks before he picks his victim. We were on the lookout so by the time we went back, we thought it was safe. Sorry it wasn’t. Though, I heard Stellan took care of her.”
“He did.”
“No way we woulda hit a room, Branch, if we knew we were opening her up for that,” Olly promised. “You can trust we have her back if she’s there and you’re not there too, monitoring the situation. That said, Talia was in the next booth, she heard everything and she called Leigh today to report that Stellan was pretty fuckin’ thorough with his message.”
“Good to know,” Branch murmured.
“Still sorry it wasn’t me, brother,” Olly said quietly.
“Not a problem as long as she was looked after,” Branch told him. “Shouldn’t have laid that on you. Shouldn’t have let her go. I knew it was a possibility. She asked if I was down with her going, I should have made her wait until I got home.”
“She’s got friends there, Branch. Not just me you can trust to look out for her,” Ol shared.
He was right.
Apparently, they both had friends who would look out for her.
“Yeah.”
“Tables turned, two men I’d trust to take Leigh’s back. You. And Aryas. So I get you,” Olly went on.
He got him.
Get you guys some pets.
Yeah, Olly got him.
“So, you get back to town, you comin’ over for chili?” Ol asked.
“I’ll let you know,” Branch told him.
“Brother, I get that time when it’s new and it’s fuckin’ amazing and you want to keep her just to yourself. Or possibly more accurately, you want her close because she’s strapped you to a horse and has something jacking your ass so you need her around on the off chance she’ll let you shoot for her. But you gotta remember, shit went down with her and she checked out. Her friends want her back.”
“I’ll let you know, Ol,” Branch repeated.
“Right, be selfish and keep her for a while. Totally get that. But don’t make that last too long. Leigh gets what she wants, and you know that, seein’ as soon you’ll be breaking in a feline and a canine at casa de la Evangeline. But regardless, you’re just plain stupid, you hold out much longer before you experience Amélie’s chili.”
“I hear you,” Branch replied.
“Cool, let you go. Drinks when you get back. Later, brother.”
“Later, Ol.”
Drinks when he got back.
Branch put down his phone and briefly allowed all that had come at him that day to fill his brain.
When he was done allowing that, he shoved it aside, got up and went to his bag.
He dug out the dog tags.
He positioned them in his palm by prodding them with his finger until he could read all the names.
“Almost there,” he whispered.
He closed his fist around the tags, walked them back to his bag, carefully tucked them inside and went back to the chair by the window.
Branch stared out of it at Raines’s room. He did it until he saw the thin streams of light around Raines’s curtains go dark.
And he did it longer.
When all was dark and quiet and had been for some time, Branch went to bed.
He woke up early, dawn far from arriving, and went out to re-enable the GPS on Raines’s truck.
He got back to his room and phoned that in to Gerbil.
Then he again hit the bed and slept.
RAINES
The next morning, after Gerald Raines took a shower, he slapped open the curtain and stood stock-still.
Written in the steam of the mirror, clearly, he read:
Robert Baker
Diane Collins
Lexis Mitro
Louis Pizale
Benetta Rodriguez
John Wright
In his haste to exit the bath, and the hotel, Raines slipped and slammed his head against the basin, tearing open his skin.
He got his bag and dogs in the car and drove out of the parking lot with blood streaming into his eye.
But at least he’d left his urine in the bathtub this time.
* * *
Branch’s lips quirked when he saw Raines, blood streaming from his forehead into his eye, load up his bag and dogs and haul ass.
When Raines was out of sight, Branch gathered his minimal shit, loaded it up in his car and checked out.
After that, he started the long drive back to his truck in Colorado.
He’d meet Gerbil on his way home.
twenty-two
Double Whammy
EVANGELINE
Late the evening before …
After taking in a movie with Felicia, Evangeline let herself into her kitchen, turning to unarm and then rearm the alarm for doors and windows.
She locked the kitchen door, and since they’d caught a movie after dinner and it was late and dark, she didn’t bother turning on the light as she dumped her purse on the counter by the door and moved across the kitchen to go direct to bed.
The night before she’d gone to the club and had her time with her friends and had her revealing time with Stellan.
That night she’d had a fabulous girl date with Felicia, getting right back into the groove with her friend.
But even though she’d had fun, and she swore to herself (and Felicia) that she’d do it more often, that day for Evangeline was just another day gone before Branch got back.
He’d said two days, maybe three.
Now it was one, maybe two.
Which was better.
She hit the family room, turning toward the living room, but stopping dead when she heard a man’s deep voice say, “Please don’t be scared. I’m not here to hurt you.”
Her panicked immobilization lasted a split
second before she spun around and started to sprint toward the kitchen door.
Strong arms closed around her, one hand covered her mouth, but both jerked her back into a hard body, and that deep voice was at her ear.
“Seriously, Evangeline. Don’t be scared. I’m a friend of Branch’s, he’s my brother, deeper than blood, you’re his so I’d never hurt you.”
New panic assailed her and she whipped around in his arms to face him.
“Is Branch okay?” she demanded.
“Peachy,” the tall, shadowed man in front of her said casually, hesitating only a moment before dropping his arms and taking a step back.
“Then why are you lurking in my family room in the dark?” she asked.
“I wasn’t lurking. I was taking a nap.”
She stared up at him, noting through the dark he was black and tall and seemed built (that last part she’d experienced to be true when he’d grabbed hold of her), but not much else.
“Do you mind if I turn on a light?” she requested.
“My guess is, if Branch has given you anything, which he has, seeing as you’re not flipped right the hell out right now, you’ll get it when I say, yeah, darlin’, I do mind.”
Oh my God.
The fact that she’d unarmed and rearmed her alarm suddenly hit her. This fact meaning he’d somehow unarmed and rearmed it too.
Oh my God.
“So you’re really a friend of Branch’s,” she whispered.
“Best he has still breathing.”
Those odd, terrible words clogged in her own throat.
“What does that mean?” she asked, her voice suddenly hoarse.
“Can we talk?” he asked back.
“I think so,” she said hesitantly.
“Sit down, darlin’,” he ordered gently.
Staying right where she was, she watched his big shadow move through the living room to the chair situated in front of her French doors.
He sat.
She walked to the couch, slowly lowering her behind to it where Branch usually sat, which was the farthest she could be from the shadowed man.
When he didn’t say anything, she asked, “Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
“Been practicing this since he first told me he found you in case I needed to make this visit, and now, sittin’ here, got no clue how to play it,” he replied.
Branch was telling his friends about her.
His friend friends.
“How about just starting anywhere and we’ll go from there,” she suggested.
He let moments slide by where he didn’t say anything.
There were so many of them, she was about to prompt him, when he spoke.
“You’re his first.”
She tensed (or tensed more).
“His first what?” she asked.
“His first after Tara. The, uh … woman he was livin’ with who, well, she—”
Evangeline helped him out, speaking softly, “Was murdered.”
“He gave that to you?” he asked disbelievingly.
“Sadly, and that not being the fact he gave it to me, but the facts he gave to me.”
And her name was Tara.
It was a beautiful name.
“Well, fuckin’ fuck me, uh … pardon my language, darlin’.”
“Branch doesn’t apologize for having a flair with the f-word so don’t worry about it.”
He sounded slightly amused when he muttered, “Right.”
“And I’m his first … what … after Tara?” she asked.
“Woman. That being one he spent any time with. Or, I probably should say any breathing being he gave a shit about who wasn’t a member of the team.”
The team?
What team?
His first woman?
“That was a long time ago,” she replied, not able to process the fact Branch had had this Tara lady in his twenties and now he was thirty-eight and since then he’d had no one.
He’d said Tara was his only real relationship.
But no one?
God.
No one.
Except her.
“Woman you love loses her life like that, probably not so easy to bounce back, especially if you’re blamin’ yourself she got taken out.”
“Yes,” she agreed, did it whispering and with her heart beginning to hurt.
She tensed again when his shadow moved but it only did it so he could lean forward and put his elbows to his knees.
And her body turned solid when he said, “Here to ask you not to give up.”
Oh God.
“I—”
“Please, Evangeline, don’t give up on him. He’s the finest man I know. He’s the finest man you’ll ever know. He’s earned his peace. This house. That pool. A pretty girl like you walkin’ in the door. He’ll try to push you away. All I’m askin’ is, don’t let him, and I can promise, you get through, he’ll make it worth it.”
She couldn’t do this without knowing something about this man. Or, him being a friend friend of Branch’s, at least trying to.
“Can I have your name?”
“You can call me G.”
That wasn’t much but this was a friend of Branch so it was actually more than she expected.
She’d expected him to refuse to give her anything.
So as she did with Branch, she took what she could get from G.
“Okay, G,” she drew in breath, “this is very sweet, in a totally insane, terrifying way, but if you know Branch, you know he’s not going to like it that you’re talking to me.”
“No, he isn’t. But he owes me his life, my count, nine times over, so he finds out, he’ll have to get over it.”
Owes his life nine times over?
“And babe, no joke,” G went on, “I said that, you repeat it, I’ll have to kill you, but more, Branch will kill me not only because I told you, then I had to kill you, but I said shit at all. He’s that good of a soldier. And getting deeper into you-know-you-talk-you-die, those missions were classified, Evangeline. So you’ll never know. Not from him. He’d have shoots shoved under his fingernails and he still wouldn’t say dick. And darlin’, I think right about now you might be getting how, but I know that as fact.”
He knew that as fact.
He knew Branch could take shoots driven under his fingernails and not say dick as fact.
God, Branch had been a soldier.
He knew how to make a bed so well because he’d been a soldier.
And he’d been on missions, classified ones, so she’d never know. Never know what he did. Never know what he saw. Never know what tortures he’d endured (apparently and heartbreakingly literally).
She’d never know what happened to him that tore him apart.
Not from Branch.
His scars.
The extremes he’d needed in play to take him out of his head and send him someplace he might find some minimal amount of respite.
Evangeline realized she’d started trembling.
She leaned toward G. “You have to tell me.”
“Evangeline—”
“He won’t tell me. Now I know why. But you have to tell me so I can put him back together.”
“Dar—”
She scooted down the couch his way and did it talking. “I won’t say a word. I won’t breathe a word of this, uh … G. Not to Branch. Not to anyone,” she assured quickly. “You weren’t here. I’ll never tell. But if I don’t know what tore him apart, I can’t know how to put him back together.”
“I’m a soldier too, baby,” he said gently.
God!
She hit the end of the couch and reached out to him, putting her hand on the arm of his chair. “So he’s yours. And he was yours before he was mine. But he’s also mine. We can do this together. You have my word. I won’t say one, single thing. Swear it to the heavens. So please tell me and help me take care of our boy.”
“Wish like fuck I could but you have to get it’s to protect B
ranch, me, you, that I can’t.”
“He’s withholding it from me, G, and I’m worried that I’ll lose. He’ll let whatever is tearing him apart tear him away from me and I’ll never get the chance to put him back together.”
“Evange—”
She shook her head and scooched further to the edge of the seat, talking.
“You don’t know me but I can assure you I’d never do anything to harm him. Never. Not Branch. And if he’s yours, you’re his, so I’d never do a thing to harm you either. Heck, I’d never do a thing to harm anybody, but especially not Branch. Or you.”
“I sense that, babe, but—”
Damn!
She needed to get through!
“He told me from the beginning he’s going to leave me and you know it.” She lost control in the end, spat out her last, leaning deeper toward him but taking her hand from his chair, putting it in her lap. “That’s why you’re here. You know he’s going to do it. Eventually. Thinking he’s protecting me from,” she flipped her hand in the air and returned it to her lap, “whatever. He’s going to go and I’ll move on, maybe,” and maybe not, but she didn’t share that, “but he won’t. He’ll never move on and you know that too.”
“I do, darlin’, and that’s why—”
She finished for him.
“You’re here to tell me not to give up but you won’t give me the ammunition I need to break through.”
G said nothing.
Evangeline waited.
G made her wait longer.
Damn these men.
“Right,” she stood, “thanks for scaring the pants off me and a whole lot of nothing.”
He stood too and she fought taking a step away.
“He lost his team,” he announced.
Her body locked, all but her mouth.
“Wh-what?”
“On a mission, his last mission, he watched every member of his team die.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
Her legs failing her, she plopped back down on the couch.
G towered over her long seconds before he sat again too.
“Handpicked. Elite. Trained in munitions. Explosives. Reconnaissance. Amphibious recon and attack. Urban combat. Surveillance. Intelligence. Assault. Jump. Search and rescue. Combined applications. And that’s just the surface. These guys were the guys they sent in when the mission was forecast to fail and these guys were the guys that went in and kicked ass. But to do what they did, they didn’t exist. He doesn’t exist and he hasn’t for a lot longer than before he became Branch Dillinger.”