Read Online In the Air Tonight by Stephanie Tyler - Free Book Online Page A

Mace, until recently,when he began to chafe at the thought of being sent in somewhere semi-blind. It was why Kell typically slipped off on his own, because he’d grown tired of the sit-around-and-wait crap … and Delta sat around far less than the rest of the Army.
    “You’re as obsinate as he is,” Dylan said. “His memory’s not the point. It’s not an either-or situation. No matter what, I want you both working with us.”
    “And Reid and Kell?”
    “I figured I’d let you talk to them about it. They might not be as hard of a sell as you think.”
    “Yeah, okay.” The two were as close as brothers, except these days, Kell had disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving Reid more lost than he’d been after the mission. Mace stared down at the paper with the phone number Dylan had given him—Reid’s sat-phone. A way to get in touch with the man without contacting or alerting their CO.
    For now, he folded the paper and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. The timing wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure it would ever be.
    C offee. It smelled good, inviting, and made Paige stir reluctantly from sleep.
    She’d slept better on Mace’s couch than she ever had in her own apartment—despite the lingering remembrance of the nightmare, better than she had in years, if she was honest with herself—and it had nothing to do with the brandy. The few times she’d tried to drown the memories with drink, her nightmares had actually gotten worse—monsters she hadn’t known were there crawled out, and she’d finallyunderstood that the memories were what had killed her mother.
    She shifted and sat up, the heavy blankets falling off of her. The fire had been kept up all night, and from the looks of things, Mace had slept—or not—in the chair directly across from the couch. Deserted now, there were blankets still strewn around and the feelings that coursed through her told her she liked the idea of him watching over her. Watching her.
    She glanced at the window—the blinds were up but it looked like evening. Hurriedly, she checked her watch. It wasn’t morning at all, but after two in the afternoon. She took up one of the blankets and wound it around her shoulders, padded to the window and realized all she could see was the snow on its ledge; the wind still howled outside, the storm far from over.
    “Coffee?”
    She turned at the sound of Mace’s voice. He was barefoot, in sweats and a sleeveless undershirt, his hair wet from what she assumed was a recent shower, and he held two mugs. Gratefully, she nodded and accepted one—light and sweet, the way she liked it.
    “I took a chance, that’s how Gray liked his,” was all Mace said before taking a gulp of his own.
    She smiled into the mug, wondered how they could mention Gray’s name so freely and it didn’t fill her with sadness.
    “Where’s Caleb?”
    “He’s out.”
    “In this weather?”
    Mace frowned. “We don’t let things like storms stop us up here.”
    In the light of day, he looked all the more dangerous … and that much more handsome because of it.
    The coffee and fire began to warm her, so she dropped the blanket onto the couch, leaving her in the T-shirt she’d stripped down to before bed last night.
    “What the hell?” He was on her before she could stop him. She’d forgotten about the myriad of bruises from the attack.
    The ones on her arm caught his attention first. Handprints and dark, irregular shapes from when she’d been thrown against the wall stood out from her pale skin as Mace held her arm out for inspection. He followed the trail, pushing the T-shirt sleeve up and then lifting her hair to check her neck and upper back.
    “Lift your shirt,” he said, and there was simply no refusing. She turned her back to him and obeyed, and he helped lift the fabric to get a better view of her badly bruised back.
    She heard him hiss through his teeth and then mutter under his breath.
    “It’s nothing. It happened on the job,” she