Locked and Loaded by Alexis Grant

game. Screw that whole death before dishonor pledge, if you’ve got a five-year-old kid somewhere or a pretty wife that they’ll hack up into pieces and ship to you. No disrespect, but it’s different working stateside than being an armed combatant in a war overseas, Captain.”
    “First of all,” he said in an easy, nonconfrontational manner. “Start practicing my alias—Juan.”
    “Right,” she said, now looking at him. “Camille.”
    “Okay, Camille. Understand that I think that what you’re doing is ten times riskier than what I’ve had to do in a unit.”
    She gave him a nod and kept her gaze on him now. His comment went a long way in easing her ire about her professional territory being breached. “Thanks. Means a lot coming from a guy from DELTA Force.”
    “ De nada . And for the record, I’m sorry that we met the way we did and that I accidentally trampled your setup. Won’t happen again.”
    “I appreciate that,” she said, losing the agitation from her voice.
    “We really are on the same side, Camille. We both want the bad guys.”
    She nodded and kept her eyes on his profile, beginning to see past her anger and slowly beginning to notice how handsome he really was.
    “Typically, we go in hard,” he admitted, “do an extraction, blow a bridge, hit a target with dead-aim sniper fire, or track moving targets … but we don’t live with the enemy. We do surveillance, but nothing as mentally and emotionally intense as what you’re dealing with. We’re in and out. Intelligence deals with going undercover.”
    “That’s why I asked if you had people here you cared about,” she said, leaning forward again and causing him to take another look over his shoulder. “I don’t think I could handle being responsible for anything that might happen. Man … if you’re half a world away in Iraq or Afghanistan, the chances of some highly intelligent nut-job finding your people is low. But if you’ve got family in Broward County or something, even a coupla states away…”
    “I appreciate the concern, Camille, and hear you loud and clear. No. I’m solo, too.” He seemed to sit up straighter in his seat, if that were somehow possible, and she watched him grip the steering wheel tighter. “Haven’t had the lifestyle that would really allow for a wife and kids, yet. Been on the move. Lost my dad when I was two. He was a Marine—tour of duty in ’Nam. They told me he got out in 1970, but not before getting hit with Agent Orange. His health was always bad from then on, my mom said. He didn’t last long past my second birthday. Died in seventy-nine. Had an older brother. The streets finally took him. Drug gang wars too.”
    “Must have been hard on you and your mom,” she said quietly. “My grandmother always would say there was nothing worse than burying a child or her grandchildren.”
    “Yeah … My brother used to keep the neighborhood gangs off me. I looked up to him and he pushed me in school—said I was the one that would piece Mom’s heart back together after he’d broken it. That’s how I wound up in the military and, unfortunately, he wound up in a body bag on the streets of Chicago. But me being in the Service didn’t glue my mother’s heart back together—just made her scared to death that she’d lose me, too.”
    “Well, she can be proud of you … got to see you make it.” Sage heard her voice soften as she said the words. The drug war in the streets at home had also struck Captain Davis in a profound way, making them fellow veterans of sorts. She hadn’t wanted to know that, hadn’t wanted to care about this new, forced partner.
    “Cancer took my mother a few years back,” he said in a quiet but matter-of-fact tone—the one that people use to disguise deep hurt. “But at least she didn’t have to see me come home with a flag draped over my coffin. That’s all she ever talked about not wanting to see. So I’m good.”
    “I’m real sorry to hear that,”