off her feet.
When the bus pulled up, she climbed aboard without a backward glance.
2
“JORDAN ELIZABETH, this underwear is indecent!” Tammy Brenner hissed as she held up a pair of thong panties.
Snatching them from her mom’s fingers, Jordan sighed. “They’re for work, Mom. So they don’t show under the uniform, remember?”
“I don’t like you working in that place,” Tammy said. “Showing off everything God gave you.”
At least today Mom remembered where Jordan worked. “It won’t be for much longer. Soon, I’ll have my degree.” She stuffed the rest of their underwear and bras into a clean trash bag and carried the empty laundry basket over to the buzzing dryer. “Then I’ll start applying for a better job.” Her stomach clenched at the thought. A part of her was so ready to get away from casino work. Another was scared to death. What if she failed her finals? Or what if all the corporate honchos took one look at her and decided she wasn’t qualified? She needed to buy an ultra-conservative business suit. And maybe darken her hair…
The boom of jet engines scraped across the sky as the Thunderbirds’ buzzed over the city, practicing maneuvers. Car alarms went off outside the Laundromat and her mother started screaming.
“What is that? What’s happening?” Tammy’s voice escalated and started to quiver.
Jordan rushed over and put her arm around her mom. “It’s only the jets from the air base, Mom, remember?”
“I want to go home. My regulars at the diner will miss me.”
Oh, no. She’d been doing so well this morning.
“But I need you here with me. We make a great team, don’t we?”
When her mom didn’t answer, Jordan gave up and stuffed the last of the towels from the dryer into the basket. She knew from experience she better get her mom home as soon as possible. Sticking the basket under her arm, she snatched up the trash sack of clean clothes, and led her mom by the arm out of the Laundromat.
“No. I want to go back to my house. I hate this place!” Tammy jerked out of her hold and stopped on the already scorching sidewalk, glaring at Jordan as if the illness was all her fault.
And maybe it was. If she hadn’t quarreled with her mom and run off to Vegas with Ian, maybe her mom wouldn’t have had the breakdown and been fired. No. The two incidents were years apart. Not related. She refused to start another self-destructive spiral of blame. Mom had Alzheimer’s. A medical condition that had nothing to do with a teenage daughter’s stupid mistake.
“Let’s go home, Mom. We can watch Sleepless in Seattle again before I go to work, okay? Would you like that?” She tried to lead her mom gently toward the bus stop, speaking soothingly about visiting Mrs. Simco and seeing her new fish. Mom loved watching Mrs. S’s aquarium. But when the bus pulled up, and she tried to get her mother to climb the steep metal steps, Tammy wouldn’t budge.
“No!” She stuck her bottom lip out like a toddler and shook her head, refusing to move.
Jordan shifted the basket of towels higher on her hip and put her arm around her mom’s shoulders. “It’s okay. You like riding the bus.”
“I want to go home,” Tammy wailed. She twisted out of Jordan’s grasp and headed at a brisk walk down the sidewalk.
“Mom!” Jordan dropped the clean clothes and went after her. Her mother shouted and cried for someone to help her as Jordan tried to reason with her.
Several people were staring, but that was the least of her worries. The last time Tammy had been this bad, it had taken a trip to the doctor’s office and a sedative to calm her down. Just getting her to the doctor had been a nightmare involving a 911 call.
The knowledge that her mother would require a special facility soon broke Jordan’s heart.
One day at a time. The saying had become her mantra. Sometimes it was the only thing that held the panic at bay and allowed her to keep going.
“Look, Mama.” Jordan pointed at the convenience store beside them. “They have slurpies. Can I have one?” Asking for her mom’s permission was an inspired tactic. Soon, Tammy had bought her little girl her favorite childhood treat and was happily back at the bus stop with their clean clothes, which by some miracle were still sitting where Jordan had dropped them. Crisis averted.
For today.
A LOUD BANGING jerked Cole off the bed into a crouch, his right hand scrambling for his weapon. It took a moment for desert terrain to fade and the lush hotel room to come into focus. His breath came in short, heavy spurts. He wasn’t in hostile territory, covered in sand and blood, making his painful way back to base.
Snapping his wrist up, he checked the time, wiped his temple on his shoulder, and stood. Eighteen hundred hours. Six o’clock. In the evening.
The hotel door banged again. McCabe yelled, “Jackson, you in there?”
Cole scrubbed his face and ran a hand through his hair, then moved to let his buddy in. “Geez, McCabe, what the hell’s with all the pounding?” Not waiting for an answer, he turned and headed for the john, leaving McCabe to make himself at home.
When he returned, McCabe was slouched in a corner wing chair, boots propped on the writing desk.
“You could have just called my cell,” Cole said, rummaging through his duffel.
“I did.”
Damn. Cole hadn’t heard his cell ring. He still hadn’t adjusted to not being a hundred percent. Like he wasn’t a whole man.
Maybe it was true.
“You look like crap, buddy. You been asleep all day?” McCabe asked.
“I’m on vacation.” After seeing Jordan safely on the bus, he’d come back to his room, but he hadn’t slept much. He’d had the nightmare again and then he’d lain awake thinking about his last mission, going over in his head what he could have done differently. If he hadn’t been such a damn hotshot.
Avoiding his thoughts, he’d headed for the Centrifuge downstairs—God love Vegas’s twenty-four-hour casinos—and nursed a couple of tequilas until soaps came on the television behind the bar. But he wasn’t about to admit any of this to McCabe.
McCabe leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “I got us tickets to the Bullring at the Motor Speedway tonight,” McCabe said. “Thought we’d head over to the all-you-can-eat lobster at the Mandalay first. Grady and Hughes are waiting downstairs.”
The thought of seafood made his stomach heave. “You guys go on.” He shot his buddy a cocky grin. “I’ve got a bet to win.” No way he could hold his head up around McCabe if he lost this wager. They’d been competitors since their first day of flight training.
McCabe shot off the chair. “Are you kidding me? These are front-row seats to Legends Cars. They got Thunder Roadsters, man. That Keno girl won’t end her shift until 2:00 a.m. You
