The Daredevil

Rina looked across the tiny table in the back of the casino restaurant at her best friend.

“You really want to know?”

It was late. Later than she normally stayed out on a work night, but she’d needed time to decompress before going home and Sadie was the only person she knew in the city who’d be up and awake. Sadie enjoyed her job as night bar manager on the strip. She was tall enough, blond enough and certainly stacked enough to have a more high-paying job as a showgirl, but that wasn’t what she wanted—not that she hadn’t been asked by quite a few of the casting directors.

Rina had no idea how they’d become friends. Maybe it was because they were complete opposites in just about every way.

Not that it mattered. The moment she’d met Sadie her sophomore year of high school they’d clicked.

“Yes, I want to know. How did he take the news?”

Rina dropped her head onto crossed arms atop the corner table, the polished wood and cotton eating her muffled words. “I didn’t tell him.”

“What?”

She lifted her head but only far enough to see her friend over the safety of her arms. “I chickened out.”

“Rina.” The single word reminded her more of her father than she’d like to admit.

That man knew how to fill one word with more disappointment and censure than anyone she’d ever met. She’d spent her entire life trying to avoid provoking that tone of voice. Trying to be different from her mother, the woman he was constantly telling her she was the spitting image of. The woman who’d deserted them both before managing to kill herself and injure a father and his son while driving drunk.

The woman she never wanted to be. The woman she saw in the mirror every time she looked.

If the General ever found out about this mess, he’d be so disappointed.

He’d run their house like he’d run his men. He’d always held high standards, for himself and everyone around him. Sometimes the pressure to live up to those expectations had been heavy to bear. But she had. Because she was a McAllister.

Not that any of that mattered anymore. What did matter was the mess she’d gotten herself into. Which she had made infinitely worse by letting Chase kiss her. Where was her damn self-control when she needed it?

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have told him anyway. I was too busy letting him suck the skin off my neck.” She let out a groan and dropped her head back onto her arms. She really didn’t want to see the look on Sadie’s face.

“Sabrina McAllister.”

The shock in Sadie’s voice was exactly what she’d expected.

“It’s about time you had some fun. And I say who better to give you a little sexual satisfaction than your husband?”

“Sure. If I wanted to stay married, which I don’t. The minute I sleep with him any hope of an annulment goes out the damn window. Before, we didn’t know we were married. Now we do.”

“So what if the judge doesn’t find out?”

Rina cut her eyes over the top of her arms.

“Have you seen my life lately? He’d find out.”

“So what? Then you get a divorce.”

“Then the General finds out, along with my commanding officer, and all hell breaks loose. We’re breaking about a million regs right now. Frankly, I’ve spent most of my life avoiding disappointing the General. Somehow, I think causing an air-force-wide scandal would crash that effort.”

Sadie rolled her eyes in a familiar gesture that did little to help Rina feel better. “You need to stop worrying about what your father thinks.”

“Yeah. Easier said than done.”

“No. No it isn’t.”

Rina sighed. Her friend simply didn’t understand. She had no idea how to turn off twenty-nine years of pleasing the man. It was a firmly entrenched habit.

For most of those years they’d only had each other to rely on. She’d watched him dedicate his life to a career that had often taken him away from her for long stretches at a time. His job was dangerous. Even at five she’d realized she could lose the only person in her life, the only parent she had left, at any moment. It had instilled in her a need to make him happy whenever he had been there. A need to be different from the woman who’d yelled, complained and made their lives miserable before deserting them both. A need to be dutiful and strong and perfect where her mother had been flighty and vain and selfish.

“What I need is to figure out how to tell my husband we’re married.”

CHASE HEARD the knock on his front door. For about five seconds he entertained the hope that Sabrina would be there on the other side. He knew it was futile but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He hadn’t exactly handled things well tonight.

“There was a rumor you were back in town.” Nope, not Rina, but someone almost as good.

“Jackhammer.” Slapping his best friend on the back, Chase ushered the man into his new apartment. “You want a beer?”

“Hell, no. I’m not going to drink with you. I’m mad as hell at you.” Jackson stopped in the middle of Chase’s living room, arms crossed over his barrel of a chest, glaring across the space at him.

There was a reason he’d been chosen for the Basic Cadet Training Cadre as a second class during their years at the academy. The man could be damned intimidating.

“Mad? What the hell did I do?”

“You’re alive.”

“Of course I’m alive.”

“There’s no ‘of course’ about it. Almost a year in a combat zone and I didn’t hear from you more than two or three times. I had to learn that you were back in town from one of the newbies.”

Chase fought down a wave of guilt at that. It was true. He really hadn’t kept in touch with anyone back home while he was gone. He hadn’t wanted to. What could he tell them? How unbelievably appalling war conditions could be? How he’d made decisions that had cost men and women their lives?

He hadn’t written home because there was nothing worth telling.

“Don’t take it personally, man. I barely wrote to my mother and sister either.”

His mother and sister had e-mailed him on a regular basis but…it wasn’t like they’d exactly been a close-knit group before he’d left for Iraq. His mother and sister had always been close…closer still after his parents’ divorce. They’d had a mother-daughter bond he hadn’t ever been a part of. Chase had been left with no one when his father disappeared from their lives.

So, no, they weren’t close. They were simply family.

“Cut me some slack. I’m not even settled yet. I would have called you in a few days.”

“Yeah, right.”

Marching into his kitchen, Jackson pulled a beer out of the fridge, plopped down onto the sofa and dropped his feet onto the coffee table—the two lone pieces of furniture in the entire room.

“So, how was it?”

Hell. Chase stared across at the other man. “God, it’s good to see you.”

“Now you get all mushy. You aren’t gonna cry, are you?”

“No.” Grabbing a beer of his own, Chase sat down beside his buddy. “Look, I’m sorry. I really didn’t think it would matter. I never thought you’d expect weekly reports.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jackson pulled a face before brushing the subject aside. “It doesn’t matter. So, I hear you’re a war hero.”

“Not really.”

“The air force doesn’t award the Distinguished Flying Cross for nothing. I’m getting an invitation to the ceremony, right?”

Between coming home, joining the squadron and seeing Sabrina again, he’d almost forgotten about that mess. Or maybe it had been convenient selective memory.

He didn’t want the honor. He didn’t deserve the damn medal. Somewhere along the way the media had gotten and run with a skewed version of the events of that night that the world seemed to accept at face value. He had no idea where the misinformation had come from…not that it really mattered. People believed what they wanted to believe.

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