Читать книгу Falling For The Deputy - Amy Frazier, Amy Frazier - Страница 10

THE DAY WAS ALREADY HOT as hell. The terrain outside the military tent was dry, sand-choked and godforsaken. Several of the guys in his unit were engaged in a game of poker before heading out on patrol. Mack couldn’t understand the attraction to games of chance. Not here. When every breath you took was a gamble. But who was he to judge? Nate, looking up from his hand, had razzed him for opting for a shower—if you could call it that, what with the rationed water. What’s the point, Nate had asked, when you’re gritty again two seconds later? Maybe Mack persevered because, for a few moments, he could close his eyes and imagine himself back in Applegate.

The explosion rocked the encampment as he was peeling off his T-shirt. Bare-chested, he ran out of the shower area. Plumes of black smoke rose to embrace the relentless Iraqi sun. Rose from the spot where his tent had been. Where the guys had been playing poker minutes ago…

With a howl to wake the dead, Mack sat bolt upright. In the dark and drenched in sweat, he couldn’t tell what was real or what was dream until a door opened and Deputy McMillan stuck his head in. The shaft of light illuminated the wall of lockers, the cots—all empty except for the one Mack clung to, in the barracks room he’d called home for the past six months.

“Whittaker, you okay?”

Mack was shaking so hard he was afraid he might bite off his tongue if he tried to answer.

“The morning shift’s about to come in,” McMillan drawled, feigning nonchalance, Mack knew. “I’m makin’ coffee. Take a shower. You can get a hit of caffeine when you’re done.” The deputy disappeared, leaving the overhead light off, but the door ajar.

Mack put both feet on the floor. He hated that the other deputies tiptoed around him. Hated that they appeared to be waiting patiently for an explanation. Of his continued squatting in the barracks. Of his silence about his tour of duty. Of his night terrors.

His head now throbbing, he stripped and stepped into the shower. Let the harsh stream of cold water sluice over his body, numbing him. When he returned to his cot, a mug of fresh coffee sat on the nightstand. A small act of compassion that compounded his guilt.

He gulped the coffee as he dressed, then headed downstairs to the sheriff’s office. He’d pick up something to eat on the go because he didn’t want to hang around the kitchen for breakfast as the shifts changed and the deputies congregated with stories about family or nights carousing or days off fishing. He might be fit for duty, but he wasn’t up to faking the rest.

As he approached Kim Nash, engaged in animated conversation with…Damn, he’d forgotten all about the kid.

Dressed in penny loafers—he didn’t know they still made them—trousers made of some silky khaki material and a long-sleeved white shirt with a flowing scarf tied at her neck, Chloe Atherton didn’t look as if she belonged in the twenty-first century. She looked like an actress right out of the 1940s. One of those earnest ingenues trying hard to make it in a man’s world. The one who always cracked the hardboiled hero’s shell. God, he’d spent too many sleepless nights watching old black-and-white movies on the barracks TV.

“Good morning, Deputy!” Atherton sang out as she pocketed her notepad. “I’m ready when you are.”