Freefall

“It was nothing. And I’ve been to war. Three times. I can take care of myself in my own house.”

He flipped a mock salute as the streetlights flickered on behind him and her AC unit hummed to life.

“See? Nothing to worry about.” Cassidy gripped the doorknob tightly and willed Jackson to leave before she told him about Shane or said anything else she’d regret in the morning.

He tossed a wave in her direction without looking back and wasn’t halfway down the sidewalk before Cassidy shut the door and bolted for the kitchen. If Shane was still in that closet, he had a lot of explaining to do, then he’d have to get out of her life forever. The last thing she needed was his messing with her head. And he was definitely messing with her head.

Slipping in her socks on the tile, she gripped the door handle to steady herself, then yanked the closet open. Only her coats stared back at her. Shane was gone.

* * *

Shane ground his teeth together as he sat at the old wooden kitchen table while his roommate Derek Mann, a retired Special Forces buddy, practiced his rusty medic skills on the slash wound across his triceps.

“Logan, you’re lucky Cassy didn’t knife you herself. Unless she did, and you invented the whole story about somebody prowling around her house just so you could save some face.” For a moment, silence held court in the small bachelor apartment. “You got bested by a girl, didn’t you?”

Standing next to her today had definitely gotten the best of him in ways he’d thought he was long past. “Yeah,” Shane exhaled in a rush. “You caught me.” He winced as Derek applied alcohol to the injury and tried to focus on the flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. The late news flashed the photo of a Fort Bragg soldier killed in Afghanistan. Shane’s gaze drifted to the brown leather couch instead. He’d seen enough death to last twenty lifetimes. “I think getting gashed was probably less painful than being bludgeoned by the Maglite she was swinging.” He twisted his head around to check on Derek’s progress. “She meant business.”

Dark-skinned fingers forced his face to turn away, though Derek never shifted his attention from his work. “Dude, you know it hurts worse if you watch. Let me handle it. The stitching won’t be as pretty as if you had a real doc take care of it, but it won’t be infected and you won’t have to answer any probing questions, all right? You’re lucky the dude had bad coordination.”

“‘The dude had bad coordination?’” Shane smiled in spite of the pain. “Man, I have mad self-defense skills. I sent the ol’ boy packing.”

“So why did you end up hiding in a closet?”

“Cut a guy some slack, would you?” Shane flinched as the first poke of the needle pierced skin. He bit back a groan. “He bolted when she opened the garage door, and I had nowhere else to go.”

“Why did you go to the house anyway? You know you convinced her a long time ago you’re a bottom dweller.”

“She was convinced because I was.” Shane swallowed another dose of pain, although this one had nothing to do with his arm. “Back then.” The silence stretched out, heavy and medicine-laden, as Shane thought about how he’d treated Cassy, how the arrogance rooted in his then-new assignment to Special Forces had changed him. The drinking. The late-nights hanging out with his buddies. The weekends he hadn’t bothered to come home at all. He couldn’t decide which burned more, the alcohol that seared his arm or the guilt that blazed in his gut. He glanced at Derek’s work.

“If you’re out to make her believe you’re not the same guy anymore, then you’ve got your work cut out for you. I doubt she’s gonna buy that Jesus made you different the very first time you tell her.” Derek dug through the first aid kit until he found a roll of white gauze, which he ripped with his teeth. “But, dude, what in the world were you thinking? You don’t woo a girl by breaking and entering.”

“The last thing I want is to woo her.” Even as he said it, he started to wonder if it still held true. Shane shook his head against the thought and against the sting in his arm. It had to be true. He couldn’t tangle himself up with her again. It had hurt too badly to watch their years together implode the first time. “Maybe I was a jerk, but she didn’t give me a chance to redeem myself. She just threw everything away without looking back. I don’t need that kind of grief.”

“True. So, tell me, if Cassy didn’t cut you, who did?”

Shane tilted his chin and leveled his gaze on Derek’s. “You’re getting pushy in your old age.”

“Just don’t appreciate buddies taking hits when they aren’t in a war zone.” The matter-of-fact words didn’t gibe with the concern in the dark eyes.

Shane shifted and ran his free hand through his hair. “I don’t appreciate it either.”

Derek taped the bandage into place and repacked his supplies. “Well, you can act the fool about this if you want. Your life.”

“Yep. And I don’t need you playing father figure, old man.” Shane’s voice strained as he pulled his arm in front of him to inspect his bandaged triceps. Now that it was sewn and wrapped, the throbbing didn’t seem as insistent as it had earlier. A few ibuprofen ought to take the edge off, but pain was the least of his worries. Cassy and he were both in the crosshairs and there was no time to hide before the trigger was pulled.

* * *

After a hot shower and a change into sweats, Cassidy felt the day recede. Still, she found herself back in front of the closet. She opened the door again and stared into it. Lots of coats, but no Shane. She tapped her finger against her thigh and tried to decide if she should be worried or angry.

Definitely angry. Exactly what had he been thinking, hiding in her closet? Posttraumatic stress disorder must have kicked in for him. Maybe she should call a therapist. Then again, why should she even care? His problems weren’t hers anymore. Let whatever girl he decided to flirt with this week deal with it. Forget it. She kicked her foot out, and the closet door slammed with a satisfying bang.

The paper bag that held the squashed remains of her hamburger rested in the corner, ketchup and chili oozing in grease slicks on the paper. Yeah, that would make a wonderful meal. She made a face and leaned down to scoop up the dinner that was now destined to feed the trash can. A ketchup smudge a few feet from the bag caught her eye, and she swiped it with her finger.

The spot smeared and Cassidy froze, her stomach twisting. Blood. Two droplets splotched the vinyl between the closet and the door to the garage. Narrowing her eyes, she backtracked, eyes scanning the linoleum as she went. There. Several long smears streaked the floor in the hallway between the kitchen and the dining room.

She gulped back nausea and leaped up to yank open the door to the garage, sudden panic fueling her desire to see with her own eyes Shane wasn’t somewhere bleeding to death. “Shane!” Her shout fragmented against the garage door and shattered against her eardrums. Silence followed. Easing down the steps, she flipped on the light. Her numb fingers fumbled with the door that led to the backyard before she managed to unlock it and step out. Wet grass clung to her bare feet. The gate to the privacy fence hung open, but the yard was still. No shadows shifted. No leaves rustled in the stagnant air behind the earlier rainstorm.

Cassidy clicked the gate shut and wandered into the house, wondering where Shane had gone and just how badly he was injured. Securing the garage door behind her, she tried to shake off the image of him in this kitchen. It was clear he was gone again. She needed to forget him.

But some small corner of her soul still cared enough to worry. The image of his face, illuminated by her flashlight beam, froze on the movie screen in her mind.

Cassidy shook her head. No. He’d left. And she had no way to find him, no idea who to contact. She hadn’t even realized he was stationed at Bragg. It would only make her look foolish if she called the police and said her bleeding ex-husband had vanished from her coat closet. Maybe she’d hallucinated the whole thing. Gripping her forehead between her thumb and index finger, she stared at the floor and tried to beat back the headache that pounded behind her left eyeball.

Food. She needed to eat something.

She glanced at the linoleum. No, first she needed to clean the tile. Then she could eat something. Why had she stored the floor cleaner under the bathroom sink? She fluttered on the edge of weariness before pivoting on one heel and heading for the stairs in the den. As her foot landed on the bottom step, she paused, head tilted to one side.

A shoe print tattooed the carpet pile of the third step.

Cassidy rested her left foot beside the imprint. Much too big to be hers.

Her hand felt for the gun holstered at her hip, and she bit back a groan. No weapon. She no longer lived in a war zone and no longer carried a pistol. Pressing her lips together, she tiptoed into the living room, snatched the flashlight from the coffee table and crept up the stairs, pseudoweapon raised. Life in Afghanistan sure hadn’t been this complicated. At least there, she’d had a gun and she’d known who the bad guys were.

Cassidy paused outside the door of the guest room at the top of the stairs. Silence filtered into the hallway. The beam of the flashlight swung across the room. No footprints marred the vacuum tracks in the carpet of the rarely used room.

At the door to her office, she changed tactics. Inhaling deeply, she flipped on the overhead light and stood ready to attack or defend. Instead, she froze. The only thing in its rightful place was the computer. Everything else—files, letters, bills, photos—was thrown around the room like the aftermath of an Iraqi dust storm.

A slow burn smoldered through her body, and it pulsed with her rising heartbeat. Shane. Clearly, he’d been looking for something, and he sure wasn’t hurt badly enough to let a little blood stop him.

All sympathy evaporated. Whatever Shane wanted, she hoped he’d found it, because it was certain he would never again set one foot in her life to look for it.

THREE

The lid to the trash can thumped into place, and Cassidy whacked it with the side of her fist for good measure. She’d spent the sleepless predawn hours sorting through papers and setting her office in order. While the cleaning bug gripped her, she boxed everything she could find to donate to charity and bagged what was left for a trip to the landfill.

She stared at the bags and shoved her bangs off her forehead. This purge should have happened years ago. Now the accumulated junk, coupled with angry energy that fueled a full summer cleaning spree, meant she’d need something bigger than her SUV to get all of the usable items to a donation site.

The low hum of an engine drew her attention to the road. As if her thoughts had solidified into physical reality, a gray late-model pickup stopped in front of the house. Adrenaline tingled her fingertips at the sight of the vehicle, but it surged on a bullet when Shane climbed out of the cab. The dark jeans and forest green T-shirt he sported today proved it wasn’t just the uniform that made the man.

Cassidy swallowed twice before her voice agreed to cooperate. “You have trouble with the words stay away?”

Shane stopped halfway between the truck and the house. His stance spoke of uncertainty. They’d known each other since high school, were together from the first day they met in English class until the day he walked out of her life, and the only other time she’d seen his confidence crack was the day he’d asked her to marry him.

She bit her lip and glared at the sky, shoving the memory of a mountain breeze and a diamond ring into the deepest well of her soul.

“Cassy, we need to talk.”

“No, we don’t. I’m confident you’ve got nothing new to say.” She yanked her hands from her hip pockets and brushed them together before planting them on her hips. “Know what? I’m too tired to talk. I spent the past few hours cleaning the mess you made upstairs.” She tilted her head toward the line of garbage bags against the wall. “You’d better hope whatever it was you were looking for isn’t in there because it’s out the door this afternoon.” Turning her back on him, she stomped into the garage. Good riddance to bad rubbish. The corner of Cassidy’s mouth twitched. Her grandmother’s favorite brush-off had never been so appropriate.

“You’re still angry?”

Without asking for permission, her feet planted and refused to take another step. Her spine went rigid, and a flush washed across her face and down the back of her neck. His question forced her to replay her reasons, to drag out old memories, to poke at her emotions and gauge their response. The hurt didn’t take her breath away like it had when she’d signed her name to papers that wiped away the promises of a lifetime, but it was still there, needling her heart. She swallowed hard. “What do you think?”

When Shane spoke again, his voice was closer. “What do you mean by the mess I made upstairs? I didn’t make it past the kitchen last night.”

The change of subject jerked her thoughts sideways as she whirled and met green eyes mere inches from her own. Her heart thudded to a stop, then pounded an extra beat. He used to be the safest place she’d ever known, the solid ground she set her feet on. The way he stood so close now made her long for that security again. Try as she might, she couldn’t force the longing aside.

“Tell me what happened, Cassy.” Shane’s voice rumbled low and played a melody on her heartstrings. She wasn’t sure if he was asking about what happened upstairs or about what happened between them. Whichever it was, this was a song she didn’t want to hear.

With more effort than she’d ever had to exert in her life, Cassidy stepped back and put a good six feet between them. “You trashed my office. Why? After all this time, what could you possibly be looking for?”

Shane ran his hand along his jaw, and his eyes flashed. “It wasn’t me.”

“Sure it wasn’t. Some mythical dragon stormed into my house, and you’re my knight in shining armor.”

He reached for her, but she backed another step away, her foot whacking the step that led to the kitchen door.

“I didn’t go upstairs last night, okay?” He pressed his lips together and exhaled through his nose. “I came here to tell you something’s going on in your unit and—”

“And you thought you’d dig through all of my stuff instead? Maybe take out some ten-year-old aggression on my file drawer?”

“No.” The word was firm enough to silence her protests and strong enough to tell her he hadn’t bothered to listen to a word she’d said. Some things never changed. “I came here to talk some sense into you and instead found the guy who torched that kid’s car in your parking lot.” When she opened her mouth to speak, he took a step closer and buried her planned protest under his words. “Short and sweet, he’s the one who was upstairs going through your stuff.”

“And I suppose you threw down a fight with him in the kitchen and that was his blood I had to scrub off my floor last night? Please.” Cassidy held up her hand to stem the flow of lies. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe that. To begin with, Anderson’s car blew up because he knows nothing about mechanical modifications. Now tell me, which movie did you steal your story from?” She rubbed her temples with her fingertips, overwhelmed by his reappearance in her orderly life. He brought up too many emotions, too many memories she didn’t need to relive. “Know what? I was thinking last night I let you off too easy. Hiding in closets, Shane? Normal people don’t do that. That’s what stalkers and murderers and guys who can’t let go do. I figured you were none of those things, but now I’m not so sure.” Well, she was sure he was neither a stalker nor a murderer, but she wasn’t so certain anymore about his ability to let her go.

Shane’s eyes stared at a spot above her head, and she knew from past experience he worked hard to keep his frustration in check. After a second, he eased the left sleeve of his T-shirt to his shoulder and tilted his upper arm toward her. A heavy white bandage peeked out at her. “It’s covering a knife wound. I got it in your kitchen, fighting off the guy who torched the car in your parking lot.”

Cassidy’s breath froze in her lungs. The blood had been real. Shane had been attacked. In her house. He could have been killed... Her hand raised to touch the bandage, but she caught herself and pulled it back. As she did, realization crept in.

Heated fear pooled at the base of her spine and softened her joints. Someone had been in her house. Someone had rifled through her things. Someone had waited for her to come home.

“There was...” Her knees refused to hold her up any longer, and she sank to the step, mind whipping through what could have happened if Shane hadn’t been there. “Somebody else was here.”

Shane knelt in front of her but didn’t try to touch her. He opened his mouth, closed it, then ran his hand through his hair. “That’s not all.”

Cassidy swallowed her fear and sat straighter. No matter what else was going on, she refused to give Shane an inroad with her emotions, refused to let him smell her fear, even if he had piqued her curiosity and possibly saved her life. “Talk.”

* * *

But he knew if he tried to touch her—especially with all of the anger simmering beneath the surface between them—he’d never get her to open her ears and listen.

He rocked forward and looked to her left, avoiding the direct confrontation contact with her hazel eyes always brought. “On my last mission in Afghanistan, we detained a guy in opium country because we believed he had intel about a Taliban leader we were trailing. He didn’t, but he kept talking about parachutes. Every one of us figured he was just babbling scared and, after we checked him out, we let him go. Sent the intel up the food chain, washed our hands of it and moved on. Honestly, I forgot all about it. We wrapped up the mission and it never crossed my mind again.”

“Okay.” Cassy slid back on the stairs as though she tried to put as much distance between them as possible.

Shane ignored the sting of her rebuff. “One of the interpreters caught up with me a couple of weeks ago, while we were gearing up to return to the States. Said he couldn’t understand what the parachute thing was all about, so he started digging. He even managed to find the guy we’d detained and asked him a few more questions.” Shane rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his fingers. “Long story short, rumor has it among the locals somebody’s been buying all of the opium they could get their hands on and working to smuggle it out of the country. Somebody associated with our military.” He waited to see if she’d make the connection. The truth would have more impact if she put it together for herself.

It took a second, but her eyes widened and her lips parted. “Parachutes and our military? So that’s why you think...”

Shane stood and jerked his neck to the side, trying to pop out some of the tension that had built across his shoulders. “The only unit handling parachutes in that area of the country at the time we detained the guy was—”

“Attached to the Eighty-Second.”

He nodded and stared at the hot water heater in the corner of the garage. If he looked at her, he might not be able to resist pulling her off the step and sheltering her the only way he knew how. Some habits never died. “I don’t have a good read on how, but the best I can figure, they’re managing to get them in with the parachutes that come back here. It all sounded pretty out there to my thinking, so I figured I’d swing by the rigger shed, get the lay of the land and try to see if I could figure out who to trust before any more shipping containers came back.”

“There are some coming in late next week. They should have come in yesterday, but they were delayed between here and Pennsylvania. One of the GPS trackers isn’t sending a signal, and the container is missing.”

Shane’s gut twisted. Everything was falling into place when he wanted it all to fall to pieces. “I was really hoping when I said that to you yesterday that you’d tell me it wasn’t yours. They’re coming from the depot in New Cumberland?”

She nodded.

If one of those containers truly had been tampered with, everything he suspected might be true. And that meant bigger trouble than he could even imagine.

Cassidy stood and brushed past him, walking toward the front of the garage. “You’re hinting that some of my soldiers are running drugs. Under my nose.” Suspicion laced her voice and stiffened her posture. “Too many people have their fingers in the pie when we ship gear to the States. And think about it. What soldier in their right mind would do such a thing? You buy drugs from those guys, you’re funneling money straight to—”

“The very same guys who are shooting at you. I know.” Shane swallowed hard, his pulse rate climbing as he studied the rough, unfinished wood of the step where she’d sat. If he couldn’t get through to her, he had no ally. “Believe me, I know. You’re giving them money for weapons and supplies and...” He balled his fists and fought the image of bloodied death as it tried to paint itself on his mind. It bled through his nightmares enough. He didn’t need day terrors to go with it. His fists shook against his thighs. “That’s the worst part. But you know guys out there have smuggled stuff back before. It makes me want to find the punk behind this and take care of it myself. Our money funding their bullets to shoot at my...at our soldiers...”

“If somebody’s really doing what you say.” Cassidy’s low voice barely registered.

Shane dragged his focus to the immediate problem of keeping Cassy out of danger. “I don’t know what else to tell you. The interpreter said they never referred to the guy by name. None of the people my man talked to had ever even seen him. And it gets worse.” Shane looked over his shoulder, then pivoted to stare at her back. “This informant? He mentioned you. Well, the Division Parachute Officer. I’m not sure what they think it’ll buy them, but...” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and prayed in a way he couldn’t quite put into words. He’d never wanted to be wrong so much in his entire life. “They’re planning to smoke the Division Parachute Officer if things get crazy.”

Cassy’s breath caught. He could see it in the way she froze, her spine rigid.

“It is you, isn’t it? You’re the new DPO. That’s why they hit your house.”

She didn’t move.

He’d hoped it wasn’t her, that yesterday had been a crazy, twisted coincidence. “Something must have happened. Something to force their hand. And I believe it’s that shipping container disappearing. It’s probably loaded.” Shane took a deep breath. “I know this sounds like some made-up story. And if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t believe me either. But I’ve never lied to you, Cassy. I might have treated you horribly and left you on your own, but I never lied to you.”

She stood with her back to him, staring at the street.

A group of kids raced by on bicycles. Their laughing shouts floated up the driveway and into the garage. Outside the door, life went on as normal. Inside, where he waited, everything twisted and jumbled like malfunctioning parachute lines. And there stood Cassy, her feet half in the normal world outside and half in the dysfunction in the garage.

“If this is true, why didn’t you just call in the Criminal Investigation Division? Or call the police yesterday? Why break into my house?” She didn’t look at him, but her back was as unbending as a rifle barrel.

“See it from my point of view. You think CID is going to drop everything because some scared informant coincidentally mentioned my ex-wife’s job? They’d call me crazy and show me the door. Either that or they’d lock me up and label me a stalker. Like I said, we sent the initial information up the chain of command, but nothing ever happened. They didn’t buy it then, why would they buy it now? That’s why I had to check it out for myself. I need more.”

A warm breeze whispered through the tops of the pine trees, but the garage remained silent as Cassy continued to stare straight ahead. She drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know. This is all too incredible. It can’t be real.”