Page 132 of Lone Star

“I’m a special operative,” he said.

“A special operative,” the agent repeated. He didn’t believe Reese, he knew.

“I’m highly trained.”

“Is that right?”

“If you have other work to do, you don’t have to stay. I’m here to watch Te–” He nearly said Tenny’s name, but caught himself. “My colleague.”

The agent blinked at him. “That is…okay, yeah, you’re definitely stupid.”

Reese finished his coffee and turned back for a refill. He’d spotted two French vanilla creamer pods earlier.

Behind him, Maddox started pacing again, soles of his shiny shoes clicking over the terrazzo. “If it were up to me, I’d pull the plug on this whole operation. Fuck it. Let all you kill each other and good riddance.”

“You could leave,” Reese suggested, stirring in the required four packets of sugar.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll just leave. Maybe I’ll hand in my gun and badge while I’m at it.”

Reese turned back around. “You could.”

Maddox paused, and glanced up at him. The smile that crossed his face owed nothing to humor or good-will. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured, then turned around, throwing up both hands. “Be my guest.Guard, you freak.” He stomped out into the hallway and took up a post over near the elevators; fished his phone out of his pocket with an angry, jerky motion, and stared at its screen.

Reese went to get buzzed in, coffee in-hand.

The nurse that came to the door took one look at his face, and her own softened. “Oh, sweetie, are you here to see that handsome thing that got shot? Come right along with me.”

He followed, bemused. What sort of expression was he making that she’d just known? That she’d reacted with instant sweetness and sympathy.ICU’s family only, Fox had told him over the phone.Tell her you’re his brother.But he hadn’t even had to offer an excuse. Should he offer one now? Maybe he didn’t need to, he thought, as her sneakers squeaked along in front of him.

They reached a glass-fronted room with a pressurized sliding door, a chart secured in a plastic slot beside it. The nurse stopped, and turned, still smiling at him. She reached out and patted his wrist, light enough not to spill his coffee. “He’s awake, so you should be able to go right in. Buzz me if he needs anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

One more smile. “Poor kid. Y’all are so cute. You remind me of my nephew and his husband.”

Oh.

Her gaze flicked down to his left hand, and she whispered, “We’ll just say it’s official if anyone asks.” She gave him a wink and retreated down the hall.

Reese watched her go a moment.Oh. Then pressed the button that sent the door shushing open and went inside.

Tenny’s eyes were blue glittering slits, the only part of him that moved, latching onto Reese as he entered and following his progress up to the chair at the side of the bed, which Reese dropped into feeling a little unusually dazed.

“What?” Tenny croaked, his voice rough and strained, either from meds, or his injury, or the aftereffects of the tube they’d put down his throat back at the scene.

“That nurse thinks we’re…” Not married, because there wouldn’t have been any need for secrecy; that’s what she’d been checking for on his hand: a wedding ring. “Having sex with each other.”

Tenny let out a sharp, sudden laugh, and then hissed, his whole body tensing up. He closed his eyes and subsided back against his pillows with a groan. “Damn it.”

Reese waited for a swift tug of satisfaction – Tenny was here because of his own stupidity and bravado, and it served him right to be in pain because of it – but it never came. Instead, the coffee he’d consumed churned unpleasantly in his gut.

He reached for something to say, uncertain why he’d even walked down here, much less sat at the man’s bedside. He settled on: “You’re not dead.”

Tenny’s mouth tugged sideways into the flattest of smiles, one that lasted only a breath before it was dropped. “Thanks to you, apparently.”

“I didn’t want to.”

Ten’s eyes widened, fractionally, and Reese found himself surprised, too – surprised that such a revelation was news to Tenny.

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