need to sign for him,” the woman said. She had some papers in her left hand, and she started toward Dylan, pulling the little boy with her.
Dylan shook his head. “Why do I need to sign? And who is he?”
The woman smiled as if there was something to smile about. “Well, Mr. Granger, according to this paper, this precious little boy is your son.”
MAJOR JORDAN RIVERA caught a reflection of herself in the airport window and realized something.
She totally sucked at disguises.
The floppy white crocheted hat with its drooping sides, the fuzzy mauve hoodie and bulging sunglasses made her look like a perverted Easter bunny.
She was drawing attention to herself. The exact opposite of what she wanted to do. It wasn’t good attention, either. People snickered. There were elbow nudges and behind-the-hand whispers.
The next time she needed a disguise, she really had to put more thought into it. And not get her traveling clothes from the Lost and Found at the base hospital. In hindsight, she wasn’t convinced the items had actually been lost but purposely abandoned because no one wanted to be seen in them.
She kept walking from the gate where her flight had just landed, and she took out her phone. One look at it, and that got her attention off her inadequate disguise skills. The phone screen was filled with missed calls that she’d received while on her flight from Germany to Atlanta. The most recent one, though, caused her to frown and silently curse, and it had come in just five minutes ago.
Why the heck was her ex, Dylan Granger, calling her?
Maybe he’d heard that she was going to be stationed at the base in San Antonio and wanted to welcome her “home.” Or tell her how sorry he was for what’d happened to her. The latter would be far worse than the former so Jordan deleted that one without even listening to the voice mail Dylan had left. She didn’t have time for a blast from the past, especially when it would mean talking about wounds—both old and new ones.
She quickly went through the rest of the list. There was a call from her good friend and occasional boyfriend, Lieutenant Colonel Theo Shaw, but it could wait because Theo was no doubt just checking on her. Too bad that she needed to be checked on.
And Theo knew that firsthand.
Jordan knew it, as well, but he’d have to wait. She didn’t delete his voice mail, though, the way she had Dylan’s, and she kept scrolling. Crap. There were seven calls from her cousin, Adele, and two from an unknown number.
Obviously, something had gone wrong.
But then, there was often something wrong when it came to Adele. She was Jordan’s first cousin, but they’d been raised together after Jordan’s aunt died from breast cancer when Adele was just a baby.
Since Jordan was six years older, she’d become the big sister. The kind of big sister that Adele thought should bail her out, repeatedly, when she got into tight spots. Which happened way too often. Adele considered herself an activist, always chasing some cause or another, but that chasing had often gotten her into trouble with the law.
“Welcome home, Major,” an elderly man said as he walked past Jordan.
It wasn’t unusual for strangers to greet her when she was in uniform. They often would thank her for her service, but even with the shady-bunny clothes, this man had obviously recognized her. That meant he’d likely seen the news stories about her. About the helicopter crash and her being taken captive.
Jordan still wasn’t able to say POW, but she suspected the news outlets here in the US had plastered those initials in their headlines. Ditto for her rescue, too.
“You’re a hero,” the man added.
No. She wasn’t. Far from it. Her rescuers were the real heroes. And Theo was part of that hero team that’d gone in and extracted Jordan and six others from what could have become a deadly situation.
Yes, Theo knew firsthand what it was to be a hero. He also knew that what had happened five weeks ago was still eating away at her.
Despite that eating away, Jordan managed a smile and a polite nod to the man who’d welcomed her home. Then, she pulled the floppy hat even lower over her face so that no one else would recognize her.
Thankfully, there didn’t appear to be any reporters, but then maybe enough time had passed since the helicopter crash and rescue. And during those five long weeks, she’d been tucked away at the hospital in Ramstein, Germany. When Jordan had finally gotten her medical clearance, she’d kept her travel plans a secret from everyone but Adele, Theo and the handful of people in her immediate chain of command.
The fewer “welcome home/you’re a hero” greetings she got, the better.
Jordan kept weaving her way through the stream of passengers who were moving to and from the other gates. She’d gone nearly four months on this deployment without the smells of fast food and the thick crowds, a reminder that she hadn’t missed either. But that could be the headache and nerves talking.
Once she’d dealt with whatever family emergency was going on, had downed some ibuprofen and spruced up the disguise a little, then she’d buy herself a burger and chocolate shake. There’d be plenty of time for that because she had a three-hour layover before her flight to San Antonio.
Moving as fast as she could with her carry-on luggage and laptop bag, she finally saw the sign for the women’s restroom and threaded her way out of the crowd to duck inside. Jordan located an empty stall that was at the far end of the room, and the moment she was inside, she shut the door and took out her phone. She’d learned from experience that it was often best to deal with family matters in private.
Sometimes, yelling was involved.
And even though this bathroom stall wasn’t exactly private, it would have to do.
While Adele might not have remembered that Jordan had been on an international flight and couldn’t answer her phone, something had obviously happened.
Something urgent.
Of course, there was usually something urgent in Adele’s life—most of it from her own not-fully-thought-out actions. But whatever was wrong, maybe it was something that Adele had already managed to fix in the past seven hours since she’d made the first call. If not, then Jordan would figure out a way to take care of it for her. That was the one good thing about her being assigned to San Antonio. She’d be nearby when Adele needed her.
That was also the bad thing about being assigned there.
Sometimes, like now, Jordan wondered if she was actually helping or if she’d just become an enabler to Adele’s insane life choices.
Jordan hit the call-back button on Adele’s number. No answer. So, she played the first of several voice mails, and she immediately heard Adele’s frantic voice.
“Jordan, I’m in big trouble. I need to talk to you. Call me ASAP.”
Even though
