Page 7 of Stand Fast

Was he the same guy she’d met online? He wouldn’t know it was her, because they’d never posted photos of each other and she’d used only her middle name for her profile.

She swallowed her mouthful of chicken before answering. “Mentally getting everything organized for tonight.”

“Ah. So, overkill then.”

“Sorry?”

“Well, you’ve always seemed to have things well in hand before, so I doubt you need to review anything.”

A compliment? She hadn’t expected that, or for him to be this friendly after she’d kept their interactions limited to strictly professional dealings. “It’s my job.”

“And you do it well.”

Jaliya wasn’t sure how to respond. It wouldn’t do to get too friendly with any of them, for professional reasons. To do her job well, she needed to maintain a certain distance and not let personal feelings muddy the waters when she helped plan an op they participated in, but she could make small talk for a little while, and she appreciated his support. “Thank you,” she murmured, and turned her attention back to her dinner.

“We were just talking about the holidays,” he added, gesturing to his eight teammates seated around the table, all engaged in animated discussion except for the big man next to him. Agent Maka seemed far more interested in what she and Khan were talking about. “Kai here was telling me how he used to celebrate Christmas back home in Hawaii when he was a kid.”

“That’s right,” Agent Maka said, shifting to lean toward her more, his thick forearms braced on the table, black tribal tattoos snaking up beneath the left sleeve of the T-shirt stretched over his massive chest and shoulders.

He was a giant of a man, at least six-foot-five, and ripped. She wasn’t sure what size shirt he wore, but it had to be at least XXL. She couldn’t imagine what it took to feed a man his size, but his tray was piled high with a mountain of food she would have thought impossible for one man to eat all by himself.

“You ever been to Hawaii?” he asked her, scooping up a giant forkful of food.

It was way easier to make conversation with him than Khan. “Sadly, no. I’ve always wanted to, though. Were you born there?”

“Born and raised.”

“Which island?”

“Maui.” He stuffed a huge mouthful of food into his mouth, chewed fast and swallowed, eyeing her the whole time. “I guess you don’t…” He frowned slightly. “Do you celebrate Christmas?”

She smiled and picked up her bottle of water. “No, but I still love the season and its message.” Peace on Earth and goodwill to mankind? Yes please. The world could use a whole hell of a lot more of it.

He nodded. “Ah. Well anyway, the guys were interested to know how we celebrated back home. I told them how my extended family would have a big dinner together after church. The day before, the men would all get together to roast a Kalua pig. Do you know what that is?”

“No.” The passionate way he talked about it was infectious, and charming.

“It’s a whole pig that we roast in a pit in the ground called animu. It’s all about having the right temperature and enough moisture. We build a fire and wait for it to burn down to coals, then add rocks and let them heat up before we put in the prepared pig on top of a bed of banana leaves. You cover the pig in soaked burlap, add water, then bury it and cook it for about twelve to fourteen hours.”

“That sounds like an awful lot of work.”

“Yeah, but it’s the traditional way, and nothing else tastes like it.” He rolled his eyes heavenward before looking at her again. “Best thing you’ll ever put in your mouth. You should—” He stopped dead and shut his mouth, the tops of his cheeks turning a dusky red above the line of his dark beard as he cleared his throat and looked down at his plate. “Course, you and Zaid don’t eat pork though,” he muttered in a low voice.

She couldn’t help a smile. She wasn’t all that strict about the way she practiced her religion—at least not as strict as her parents would have liked—but some things were just taboo. “No. But that was really interesting. Do you hang stockings and all that too?”

“Yeah, but from the palm tree out front of my grandma’s house, because we don’t have a fireplace.”

Not much need for one in Hawaii. “That’s so neat.”

Maka nodded as he gobbled down another bite of his dinner, still looking slightly embarrassed.

Agent Khan seemed to be fighting a laugh as he drained the last of his coffee. She shot him a warning look and he lowered his mug to reach out and grasp Maka’s massive shoulder with his left hand. “Don’t worry about it, man. She doesn’t seem offended.”

“Not at all,” she assured him with another smile. “I really do love this time of year. When I was growing up in Britain I used to love seeing all the Christmas trees and decorations everywhere, and we had good friends who used to have us over for Christmas dinner. They roasted their turkey in the oven instead of a pit in the ground, but it was still amazing.”

Agent Khan’s green-and-gold-flecked eyes warmed and the corners of his mouth tilted upward in the midst of his beard in a sexy smile, and damned if her heart didn’t speed up. “Where did you grow up over there?”

“Manchester, then London.”

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