Page 19 of Peace Under Fire

“Uh…” He shook his head and flinched as the first twinge of pain struck. “You’re not?”

“Good God, no, I most certainly am not.”

He scowled at the vehemence in that statement, as if her V-card had been punched hundreds of guys ago. The scowl deepened as an endless parade of phantom men banging her played through his mind.

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” She had to be messing with him. There was no damn way he could have been so wrong about her.

“No. I’m not. I’m not ashamed that I like sex.”

What the fuck?

His hand clenched around the phone. He hated the thought of her enjoying sex with other guys. Yeah, he despised that thought.

“But look,” she said briskly, “we’re getting off-topic.”

Bullshit. Squish’s other hand clenched. This was a convo they should have had months ago.

“You were asking about your friend, Lucky.”

His buddy’s name snapped Squish’s focus back on track.

“Yeah, Lucky,” he rasped.

How many dudes she’d slept with was not important, no matter how much he wanted to track down every single one of them and pound them into the ground.

And no way was he letting her near Gray.

“I dream mostly about you. But I saw a few things about your friend. There was a boat. The interior of a primitive hut.” Her voice shook. “They had him chained up. They tortured him.”

“He’s dead?” Squish’s scalp tightened. The news the rebels had tortured Lucky wasn’t a surprise. He knew—he’d seen—the ugly side of human nature.

“I don’t know.” Her voice steadied. “I saw him in another boat. But with a woman this time, a blonde one. And then in another hut, even more primitive and surrounded by trees. He wasn’t chained in that hut. He was lying on some kind of mat and the blonde woman was there too. But I have no timeline on what I saw. The dreams with the blonde could have been from earlier in his life.”

“No.” Squish frowned thoughtfully, massaging his temple. “I would have known if he’d shacked up in a hut with some woman.”

But it still didn’t tell him where Lucky was, or if he was still alive.

“Anything else?” Squish asked as he made his way back to the recliner and his cooling bag of ribs.

“No. I have to—”

“Wait!” Squish raised his voice. “We need to find the bastard who set us up. Who sent that mission south?”

“I don’t know anything about that.” Her voice went flat.

Squish rolled his shoulders and moderated his tone. “I’m not accusing you of anything. But if you dreamed about him, if you saw—"

“I didn’t,” she broke in, her voice quiet, maybe even sad. “You’re the only one I dream about. Well, most of the time, anyway. I think I dreamed about your friend because he was with you during that mission.”

The only one I dream about…

Squish froze on his way to the recliner. “How many times have you dreamed about me?”

He could hear the hesitation over the line.

“I’ve lost count,” she finally said with a shrug in her voice, as though she’d decided admitting the truth didn’t matter. “I’ve dreamed about you for years, for as long as I can remember. I didn’t even know you really existed at first. I thought if I tracked you down that—” She broke off, sighing. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve got to go.”

“Mandy—” But the line had already gone dead.

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