Page 1 of Unexpected Arrivals

Chapter One

Trevor

“Welcome back,” Alex said to me as I paused at his office door. “How did it go?”

I leaned against the doorframe, laughing. “It was a major clusterfuck, but that’s nothing new.”

Alex chuckled. “Yeah, so I gathered by the reports that I read. When did you get back?”

“Just after midnight last night.”

He grinned at me. “No wonder you look like hell. You should have taken today off.”

“Nah,” I stepped further into his office, “I got a few hours of sleep, sitting around my place is not going to help me unwind, you know that. Although the weather sucks today, I could do without all the rain.”

“Yeah, I hear ya.”

“Do you miss not going over?”

“Fuck, no!” He laughed. “I’m rather happy to be stateside for good. I’m getting too damn old to play that game. Besides, Lexi is beyond happy that I’m here.”

I grinned at him, thinking he was pretty damn lucky to have someone like Lexi in his life. She was a good match for him, and as much as it sucked not having him with me overseas when I traveled to watch my back, I understood his need to be home, especially now that he had a new baby on the way.

“Everything all set for the wedding next weekend?”

“Yep. I’m glad you made it back when you did. I didn’t want to have to ask Screamer to fill your spot as my best man.”

“No way. I wasn’t going to miss it. I’m happy for you, Alex.” Maybe it was my tone of voice, or perhaps it was because he knew me so damn well, but he studied me carefully for a moment.

“Someday, you’ll find what I have.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I gave him a lopsided grin as thunder rattled overhead, and then turned for the door, not wanting to talk about my lack of a love life. Although it was my choice, it wasn’t like I hadn’t had a lot of opportunities to be in relationships. I did; I chose not to be. Maybe I was holding out for that special someone who rocked my world—did that person even exist?

“Hey, Trev,” I paused and glanced over my shoulder as he continued to speak. “You deserve to have a good woman. She’s out there, be patient.”

“Shit, man—I’m thirty-nine years old, if I haven’t found her by now, I doubt I ever will, but maybe.” I shrugged and then told him I’d talk to him later before I headed to my small cubical near the back of the floor we occupied.

I didn’t need an office like Alex had now. After telling our boss, Jake, AKA the Screamer, that he refused to travel overseas anymore, he’d been upgraded from a small cubical to a four-wall floor-to-ceiling office. Now instead of working from home most of the time like he used to, he punched the clock—fuck that. I never was one for working office hours. Nope. I much preferred to be fluid and work as needed, grabbing a few hours of shut-eye before moving on to the next adventure.

Alex used to be like that, but his world had changed, and while Jake hadn’t been happy to lose one of his best operatives and safety coordinators, he would rather have him in some capacity than not at all. He knew if he didn’t grant Alex his wish, Alex wouldn’t have let the door hit his ass on the way out. That’s how much his future wife Lexi, his daughter Veronica and the new baby meant to him.

A baby. I couldn’t even imagine what having a child would be like with my lifestyle. Another round of thunder vibrated the building, and I dropped my backpack to the floor next to my desk as I pulled out my chair and let my gaze slide over my desk. Personally, I’d never been one of those men to say, yeah, I want a wife, house, kids, picket fence, and a dog. Okay, so maybe a house and a dog. A dog would be cool, but that might even be hard with how much I traveled.

I sighed as I got situated. While I did like my bachelor-style life, I guess I did want more. I would enjoy having a woman to share my life—my bed—maybe. Why the hell was I even thinking about this? Maybe it was because Alex was getting married soon and I saw how happy he was. Perhaps a small part of me was jealous.

My cellphone rang, and I glanced at the screen to see an unknown number. Thunder rumbled so loudly around me that I glanced at the ceiling. Damn. I slipped my thumb over the screen and sent it to voicemail. In the last ten days, I had received several phone calls from that same number, but I hadn’t answered any of them, and no messages were ever left. Sooner or later, the caller would either stop or leave a message as to why they were calling. If they didn’t, then it wasn’t important enough for them to call me in the first place.

“Hey, welcome back,” Jake said from behind me. “You available to do a debrief in a little while?”

“Yeah, give me fifteen, and I can do that.”

“Let’s say thirty. I’m going to have breakfast sandwiches brought in, and we’ll meet in the conference room once they arrive.”

With a plan in place, I listened to my messages on my office phone and checked through a few pieces of mail that were left for me. Mostly advertisements for tactical equipment and a few offers to try specific gear out. It was one of the best things about my job. A lot of tech and tactical companies reached out to us to test products. Many of them wanted to know if they would be beneficial enough for military use before they tried to jump through hoops to get it in front of someone who might purchase it in quantity.

Some items were awesome, and others sucked. Alex and I enjoyed trying things out and putting them to the extreme to see just how much they could handle. Once we’d finished, we’d write up our thoughts and suggestions to make them better and send them to the companies, along with any mishaps to their products. Because we did such a great job with that, they continued to send us things to play with and test. Now that was my kind of relationship.

When breakfast arrived, six of us filled the conference room, and Jake introduced me to Harvey Melton and Gregory Blaire, two new guys who just started working with us. We gathered around the table, talking bullshit for a few minutes while we ate, and Alice, our receptionist slash secretary, popped her head into the room.

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