Page 27 of Gryphon

“So not messing with you,” Tad whispered once he was gone.

“Fuck off.”

“Guess Mike wasn’t kidding about you being hair-trigger all the time.” He ignored her warning.

When she didn’t speak, Jeremy answered for her. “She’s former Australian Special Air Service Regiment. Like our Delta Force only with a funny accent.” He mopped up more of the coffee after grabbing a few napkins from the next table over.

Didn’t matter that it wasn’t in her cup anymore, not a chance she’d keep anything down until the adrenal punch to her system chilled out a bit.

“SASR?” Tad whistled softly. “No shit?”

She gave him the finger without looking up from her lost caffeine supply.

“Sorry.”

She kept the finger up high and dry, which finally shut him up, leaving her the peace to feel truly idiotic.

The major stood by the head table. He was addressing Miranda; though occasionally casting a wary glance in her direction.

Holly should be there. She knew it. But she didn’t trust her legs at the moment. Didn’t trust herself to not find yet another way to screw up. And definitely didn’t want to face Mike after overreacting to Tad’s miscue.

Instead she stared down at the puddle of coffee that had survived in her saucer and did her best to be invisible.

In the field, she often became invisible with the right camo and SASR trained stillness. Too bad she couldn’t turn invisible to herself. Because whatever she was feeling and didn’t understand, she—times ten—didn’t want to see it.

21

A waitress had cleared the worst of the mess Holly had made and departed to fetch her a fresh coffee.

As only Mike could ever do to her, without her situational awareness triggering at his approach, he arrived at the end of the table—she’d know his boots anywhere. No longer the Rockport walkers he’d had on the first day. Nor the high leather he’d worn for the next two years in case of snake attacks, even on snow and ice.

Now? Who else purchased designer work boots other than Mike Munroe? Six hundred bucks buys utility and luxury, he’d claimed. Hard to believe she was sleeping with a guy like that. For four years now, he was always the best dressed member of the team, of any team they met in the field. Personally? She’d rather invest in pizza.

For all that she scoffed at him, he was damn good at his job, in ways she didn’t begin to understand. Easily half of the incidents they investigated eventually boiled down to his territory—human factors and operations.

Christ, even last night, the copilot snapping the pilot’s neck fell under human factors. Everything the other four of them had done in the long hours after that discovery—make that three of them plus Tad fumbling gamely along in their wake—had found nothing wrong with the aircraft.

“Jeremy, Tad. We’re on the move.”

Holly looked from Mike’s boots to his face in shock. Stone-faced. No way would she be the one left behind for a single—

“You too.” Then he twisted on his heel and headed for the door.

The major, Miranda, and Kurt from the SHK followed close behind.

Rolm, the LuftSvenska president, sat alone, studying his coffee as she’d been doing. Except in proper Swedish noir fashion, he looked like he wished to drown himself in his. Rather than drowning someone, anyone else.

As he rose to his feet, Tad started telling some story about going fishing with his Pop. But with neither coffee nor breakfast, she didn’t bother engaging the part of her brain used for talking, listening, or telling him to shut the fuck up.

When she shifted her right foot out into the aisle to stand up, the broken chair almost pitched her headfirst into Tad’s arms. Would have if he hadn’t caught her arm. Mike scowled back at her from where he was holding open the restaurant’s door for Miranda.

She shook off Tad, but Mike was already gone by the time she found her equilibrium.

At Miranda’s little bizjet, and it was obvious that the SHK investigator and the Air Force major were sticking with them, she let them take the cluster of four facing cabin seats along with Jeremy and Tad. She took the side-facing seat opposite the door. The cabin only had five seats, if you didn’t count the cushion on the lavatory at the very back.

That was the seat they’d always stuck Jon Swift in, back when the major occasionally flew with them. Back when he’d been dating Miranda despite the rest of the team’s distrust. The outcast / loser seat; one he’d ultimately proven that he deserved before Holly had tasered him and thrown him off the team.

Much the same way she’d thrown Andi off the team.

---