ules had fallen asleep.

Right there, in Robin’s arms, no doubt lulled both by the movement of the limo, and Robin’s fingers running gently through the softness of his hair.

Robin had turned down the volume of the radio and gotten on the intercom to the driver, telling him they were having a business meeting back here—instructing him to just drive. Anywhere. Nowhere.

It didn’t matter, as long as he could stay right here, right like this, holding Jules for as long as possible.

There was a scar on Jules’s side, just above his hip, that he hadn’t had the last time Robin had seen him without his shirt. The last time? The only time, before tonight.

Before wonderful, amazing, fantastic tonight.

And okay. There were a couple of blips that marred the total perfection of the evening. The fact that Jules had this new scar from what was obviously a bullet wound.

Was the fact that he’d gotten shot once in the past two years good news or bad? As in, had Jules only gotten shot once, as opposed to the average FBI agent, who’d gotten shot twice? Somehow Robin suspected the true average was zero times. And this new scar, combined with all the others Jules permanently wore, created a certain amount of anxiety for him.

And yeah—another blip on his happiness index was the fact that Jules hadn’t responded with much more than a “Gah,” when Robin had uttered the most important words he’d ever spoken in his entire life.

I love you.

He’d never said it before and meant it. Not this way, with every cell in his body aching with both joy and hope. And terror.

But all Jules had said, after several long minutes spent catching his breath, was “God, that was great. That was…stupid, but great.” He’d softened his words by kissing Robin before they shifted to a more comfortable position on the bench seat, with Jules, who was shorter, spooned back against Robin, who wrapped him tightly in his arms. “It was significantly better than the fantasy version.”

Robin had laughed, playing with Jules’s hair. “Yeah, you’ve spent a lot of time with me in my shower, too, babe.”

“Every day,” Jules agreed, “since you flirted with me out on your driveway in L.A. I remember seeing you and thinking…” He laughed.

“What?” Robin asked, his heart in his throat.

“This one’s going to rip my heart to shreds.”

Not the words he’d been hoping to hear. “I won’t,” Robin said. “I promise.”

“Sweetie,” Jules had told him, his voice already fading. “You already have.”

“Tell me about Betsy Bouvette.”

Ric lifted his head from the damp tangle of sheets to look at Annie. “Isn’t this the part where we sleep?”

She smiled at him, her eyes as warm as the candlelight that flickered across her bare skin.

Annie Dugan was naked and in his bed.

It shouldn’t have been that big a surprise, considering what they’d just spent the last hour doing, but the realization was still new enough to send a shock wave of disbelief through him. She was breathtakingly beautiful, but probably not to everyone, Ric knew that—not in this day and age of rail-thin supermodels and anorexic TV actresses. But to him, Annie was the embodiment of everything he loved best about the female form. With her generous curves and smooth skin, she was warm and sweet and unbelievably soft.

As he looked at her now, he felt his body stir, which made him smile. What was he, seventeen? This was crazy, but damn, he couldn’t get enough of her.

“She was a year ahead of you in school, right?” Annie asked, reaching out to touch his tattoo, her fingers tickling him as she traced the ocean-wave pattern encircling his upper arm.

“Two,” he told her, catching her hand in his and interlacing their fingers. “Why the interest in Betsy?”

“I’m just curious.” She propped her head up on her other hand. “Do you think if she hadn’t dumped you, you would’ve married her?”

“Betsy?” Ric laughed. “No. We were kids. I mean, yes, she was special—she was the first girl I ever…cared about, but…”

“You said you loved her,” Annie reminded him.

“Yeah, I did,” he admitted. “But that was back when…I don’t know…love was this…It was this strange, new thing. It was all mixed up with sex and being fifteen and horny all the time.” As if being thirty-five had changed anything. “Betsy was smart and funny—I really liked her. A lot. And she liked sex as much as I did. But did I love her because she wanted to get with me, or did she want to get with me because I loved her? Or maybe she just wanted to piss off her father. I honestly don’t know.”

“You went out with her for a really long time.”

“Year and a half,” he agreed. In high school years, that was a lifetime. “Although part of that half year was really just me waiting for her to come home from college for Thanksgiving—which was when she broke up with me.”

“Oh, no.” Annie made a face. “A turkey drop?”

“Pretty classic,” he agreed. “At least we had sex first—before she broke the news.”

“You were really…monogamous all that time?” she asked.

Ric just looked at her, but she didn’t back down. She barely blinked. “Where do you see this going?” he asked her, instead of answering her question. “You and me.”

That caught her off guard. And the change in her body language was immediate. She withdrew, taking her hand back, pulling the sheet around herself. Hiding.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m pretty confused. About everything except the sex. The sex is…”

“Yeah,” he said. “For me, too.”

She smiled into his eyes, and there it was—that electricity between them that never seemed to stop flowing. Jesus God, just like that, he was hot for her again.

But Annie looked away. “But I guess…I didn’t realize just how big a mistake this was going to be.”

It was stupid. He was stupid. He’d used the word mistake himself, but somehow it stung, hearing it from her lips.

“I mean, everything’s changed, hasn’t it?” she asked.

“Yeah, well, I warned you.” His tone was far more snarky than he’d intended.

“I know.” She, too, got a little sharp. “But it wasn’t just me that got us here. You were a very active participant.” She reached down and wrapped her fingers around him. “Look at you—you’re ready for more. Or is this another warning?”

“Yeah, keep touching me like that.” Was that a warning or was he begging her not to stop what she was doing? He wasn’t sure. Mother of God…

“Do you just walk around like this all day?” she asked, her hands not a lot more gentle than her voice. “Just in case a willing woman passes by?”

“You,” he told her. “In case you walk by. You do this to me.”

She let go of him, flopping back on the bed. “God, you’re good. I almost believe you.”

Almost? He sat up. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“Because I don’t,” she said. “Maybe that’s the problem with being friends with, you know, benefits.”

Was that really what she thought this was?

“Maybe we just know too much about each other,” Annie told him.

“What do you know about me?” Ric lit into her. Friends with benefits? “When have you ever asked me what I’m feeling or what I believe in? You’re so ready to make assumptions—that I have a problem with you risking your life, that I want to protect you because you’re a woman? That’s bullshit—that was your word the other night, and it was the right one. But the bullshit was yours—it was you, jumping to conclusions. I don’t believe that women are any less capable than men, but you’re ready to think I do because you think you know me. Ask Lora Newsom what it’s like to work with me, Annie, if you don’t trust me to tell you the truth.”

She sat up, too, more than ready to fight. “Okay, so tell me, Mr. Touchy-Feely, where you see this”—she gestured between the two of them—“going. Because you know what I see? I see me leaving tomorrow, and being gone for God knows how long. And if I come back, we’ll both have had plenty of time to think, and it will be extremely awkward, because sanity will have returned. Neither one of us will ever be able to look the other in the eye again, and that’s it, we’ll be done. We’ll exchange Christmas cards each year and never see each other again.”

“So let’s make sure that’s not what happens,” Ric said. If she came back…?

“I don’t know how to do that,” she said.

“Well, you can start by coming back. Not if. Not maybe. ” Ric spoke more sharply than he’d intended.

“Don’t yell at me!”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are!”

He couldn’t take it anymore. He kissed her, and she was fire in his arms, kissing him back as if it had been weeks since they’d last made love, instead of mere minutes. He rolled her over, grabbing protection from a box that he’d already ripped open, pushing between her legs, pushing himself home.

“I can’t get enough of you,” she gasped, saying aloud what he’d been thinking earlier. “This is crazy!”

“No, it’s not, it’s great.” His eyes were damn near rolling back in his head, it felt so freaking good.

“Right now,” Annie agreed, “yeah. But tomorrow’s…Oh God, it’s gonna suck.”

Ric couldn’t argue with that, since it was more than likely that tomorrow she was going to have to leave. All he could do was hold her as she unraveled in his arms, as his blood roared in his ears and rushed through his veins as she took him with her.

“Come back,” he whispered, when he could finally speak again. “After this is over, I want you to come back, okay?”

Annie opened her eyes and looked up at him, about to answer.

But his phone rang. His home line. The one he so rarely used that he set his ancient answering machine to pick up after only one ring.

His cell phone was downstairs, in the pocket of the pants that he’d left on the floor of the office, so maybe it was the FBI, tracking him down. Maybe they were calling to tell him that Peggy’s message had revealed all the information they’d needed, and that Yazid al-Rashid al-Hasan and Burns, both Senior and Junior, had been taken into custody, and that Annie wasn’t going to have to go anywhere at all.

But the voice on the other end wasn’t Jules’s or Yashi’s or even Deb’s. “You’re not sleeping, are you? Dude, the night is young.”

It was Gordie Junior.

“I tried calling your cell, but you didn’t pick up. I got a conflict for tomorrow night—I can’t meet you then, but I got some free time right now.”

Annie had propped herself up on her elbows, worry in her eyes. Ric shook his head, glad he hadn’t answered the phone.

But Junior wasn’t done.

“The lights are on in your office,” he continued, “and your car’s in the drive, so I know you’re there. Quit banging the double-wide bitch and come downstairs and let me in. I’m pulling up outside.”

Jules’s phone rang, waking him from the deepest sleep he’d had since he’d gone on vacation in Italy last year.

He wasn’t sure at first where he was. It was dark and music was playing softly. And he wasn’t alone.

He was in Robin Chadwick’s limousine.

It came back to him in a flash, complete with a flare of panic and surge of heat. What had he done? And sweet, sweet Jesus, when could he do it again?

His phone was lighting up, which helped him to find it and flip it open. “Cassidy.”

“Where the hell have you been?” It was Max, his boss, and he wasn’t happy.

Crap, it was after 1A.M., and Max and Yashi had both called him three times in the past ten minutes. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t have my cell on a loud enough ring.”

“You all right?”

“Yes, sir. I’m…fine.” Jules wasn’t sure what he was right now—ecstatic or in despair—but either way, fine was such an understatement, he almost laughed aloud from the absurdity of what he’d just said.

Warm beside him, Robin was stirring. “Shit,” he mumbled, “I gotta pee.”

Jules moved across the limo, away from him, trying not to trip over the pile of clothing and shoes. “What’s going on?” he asked Max. “Did we crack Peggy’s code?”

Robin switched on the running lights, and they both squinted at each other in the dim glow. Hello, naked movie star. Robin smiled, clearly liking what he saw, too, but when Jules put his finger on his lips, he nodded.

“I’m at your hotel,” Max told him. “Why don’t you just get over here, as soon as possible? I’ll meet you in the lobby bar.”

“I’m on my way,” Jules said, hanging up and reaching for his shorts.

“Where to?” Robin didn’t hide his disappointment, but he also didn’t complain, his finger already on the intercom button.

“My hotel.” Jules sorted his clothes from Robin’s as that info was relayed to the driver.

“We’re just a few blocks away,” Robin reassured Jules as they both hurriedly dressed. “What’s up?”

“My boss is in town,” Jules said, tying his shoes.

“Max?” Robin asked, and Jules looked up. Robin remembered his boss’s name?

“Yeah,” Jules said. “He’s waiting for me in the hotel bar. He didn’t explain why or what’s going on.”

“Give me your room key,” Robin suggested. “I’ll go up and wait for you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jules said, quickly adding, “not because I don’t want you there.” He tossed Robin’s other shoe to him. “See, with Max, you just never know. He may want to hold a meeting in my room with the entire team. And I don’t have a suite like you do, so…”

“Then I’ll just come in and wait for you—on the other side of the bar. I won’t try to crash your meeting, don’t worry. I’ll behave.”

“I’m not worried. I just…I don’t know how long I’ll be.” Jules flipped down a mirror and checked to see if he had sex hair. Yes, he definitely did. He tried to smooth it down.

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, well, I do,” Jules took a bottle of water from the limo’s minifridge, and poured some into his hand, using it in an attempt to reactivate his hair gel. Great, now he looked as if he’d just had sex in a swimming pool. “Do you have any idea how tired you look? Go back to your hotel—”

“What are you afraid of?” Robin interrupted. “We’ve already crossed the point of no return. I want to wake up tomorrow with you in my arms.”

God. Jules wanted that, too.

The limo turned in to the hotel driveway and braked to a stop. Unlike at Robin’s fancier hotel, there were no bellhops at this hour to throw open the doors.

Which was just as well, because Robin had come across the limo to kiss him, and Jules was unable to do anything but kiss him back.

Except Max was in the hotel, waiting. Jules pulled away. “Go back to your hotel,” he told Robin again. “I’ll come to you.”

It was obvious that Robin hadn’t expected him to say that. “Really?”

“It might be late.”

“I don’t care.” Robin dug out his wallet, pulled out his key card, putting it in Jules’s jacket pocket.

“Don’t wait up for me.” Jules smoothed down a piece of Robin’s hair that was sticking straight up. He smiled at the protest he could see forming in Robin’s eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll wake you when I get there.”

Robin nodded. And then kissed him again, hard and sweet. He opened the limo door. And got out. “Don’t freak. I’m coming in with you, but only because I have to use the men’s. Sean, I’ll be right back,” he called to the driver.

The hotel’s automatic doors slid open, and Jules followed Robin, who was running ahead into the lobby. But then Robin stopped and turned back, waiting for Jules to catch up. He was, without a doubt, the most beautiful man Jules had ever known, especially when he smiled the way he was smiling now.

“You know, I meant what I said before.” Robin put his hand over his heart. “I’m yours,” he told Jules. And then he turned and ran for the bathroom.

And okay, so maybe that meant it wasn’t the most romantic moment of Jules’s entire life, but it was pretty damn close.

Grinning like an idiot—because there was so much about this that just wasn’t going to work—Jules went into the hotel pub. It was dark in there, but he spotted Max right away, sitting at the bar.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting for too long, sir,” Jules said.

Max turned. “No, the flight just got into Tampa an hour ago.”

“Really.” What airline had flights landing after midnight? West-coast Florida was a roll-up-the-sidewalks-at-ten-thirty kind of place. “What’d you have, a lot of delays?”

“We hopped a military transport to MacDill.” It was only when he heard that familiar Western drawl that Jules realized that the man sitting next to Max was none other than his good friend Sam Starrett.

“Hey, hey, SpongeBob!” Jules laughed as Sam—a former Navy SEAL, hence the marine nickname—slid off the bar stool to give him a hug plus plenty of backslaps to prove that he still wasn’t gay. Some things never changed.

“New haircut?” Sam asked. “You’re looking good, Squidward.”

“Yeah, no…Thanks,” Jules said. “What is this, a surprise party? It’s not my birthday. I thought you and Lys were taking a vacation on Cape Cod after you got back from Europe.”

Sam and his wife, Alyssa, worked for one of the nation’s top personal security companies, Troubleshooters Incorporated—a civilian organization that was often contracted to task-force with the CIA or the FBI. There was enough work to keep them on the clock 24/7, and for a long time they’d done just that, jumping from one job to another, with no time off in between. Sam recently told Jules that he and Alyssa had made a pact to start taking more downtime.

Of course, maybe that was why Sam was in Florida. “Is Alyssa here, too?” Jules asked, looking around the bar. Had he missed seeing her, as well? But she wasn’t in sight. Robin was, though. He’d come out of the men’s room and was now at the other end of the bar, suspiciously eyeing Sam, who still had his hand on Jules’s shoulder. “Doesn’t your cousin live in Sarasota? Noah Something…Wait for it—it’s coming.” Jules squeezed his brain. “Gaines, right? Noah Gaines.”

Sam shook his head. “Do you remember the names of everyone you’ve ever met?”

“Only the hot ones.” Jules smiled back at him. “Are you here to see Noah?”

“I’m here to see you,” Sam told him, his smile fading to grim. “Lys is already in Spain. We got another lead on that missing suitcase nuke—it’s pretty high priority, considering Peggy’s message. I’m going to catch a flight over in a little while.”

A flight leaving after oh-dark-hundred, as SEALs and former SEALs were fond of calling the wee hours of the morning. What plane was Sam going to catch in a little while?

But that mystery was going to have to wait. “Peggy’s message?” Jules turned to Max expectantly.

“Her code included a date,” he told Jules, seeing Sam’s grimness, and raising it a million. He had bags under his eyes, and he looked as if he were wearing yesterday’s suit, and two years ago’s attitude—he was clenching and unclenching his jaw so tightly, his teeth were going to be nothing but shards and nubs if he kept that up. “June thirteenth. She also told us Atlanta andT2 and three letters—GBJ.”

Gordie Burns Junior. So it wasn’t the father. It was the son.

T2 was Tango Two—the code name for al-Hasan.

And June 13 was going to arrive much too quickly. Was it the date of al-Hasan’s arrival, or the date he went to Atlanta?

“Sir, we’re going to catch this motherfucker, I guarantee it,” Jules told Max. “I know that’s not going to bring Peggy back, but…I really am sorry for your loss.”

Max glanced at Sam.

Sam—who had come all the way to Sarasota to see Jules, when he should have been in Spain with his ass-kicking wife…?

It didn’t compute. None of it did. A military transport to MacDill Air Force Base up in Tampa? To deliver, in person, information Max just as easily could have given Jules over the phone?

And, come to think of it, Max and Sam weren’t exactly buddies. The idea of them traveling anywhere, together, was bizarre.

“Who died?” Jules said, looking from Sam to Max and back.

Oh, Jesus. He was right. He could see it in Sam’s eyes. He was going to throw up. “Please tell me it’s not Alyssa or Gina or the baby.” Although, as soon as he said the words, he knew his friends were okay. Why would Sam and Max come all the way to give him news about their families?

“They’re fine,” Sam reassured him, his hand again on Jules’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go someplace more private?”

“Is it my mother?” Jules asked.

“Your mother’s fine, too.” Sam tried to move him toward the door.

But Jules shook him off. “Damn it, Starrett, don’t make this a guessing game. Just fucking tell me who died!”

“Ben Webster,” Max said.

Ben. Oh God…

“He was killed outside Baghdad by an IED,” Max told him.

Ben, who’d been serving in Iraq, whom Jules really should have thought of first, since he was stationed in one of the most dangerous places in the entire world.

Ben, whom Jules hadn’t thought of once today.

“Fuck.” Sam was pissed. “We did that so fucking badly.”

“Trust me, there’s no good way,” Max told him.

“Can we help you get upstairs, Jules?” Sam asked, his voice gentler. “Or get you a drink? Tell me what I can do to help you.”

“No.” Jules shook him off. “I’ve just…got to sit down for a sec.”

“Here.” There was a table nearby. Sam pulled out a seat, pushed him into it, and sat next to him, a solid, steady presence. “Get him a shot of Uncle Jack,” he ordered Max.

“IED?” Jules asked. It didn’t make sense. None of this made any sense at all. “He wasn’t flying?”

Max put three glasses and a bottle of whiskey on the table in front of them.

“I don’t want that,” Jules said. “I just want to know why wasn’t he flying?”

It was crazy. Dead was dead. Why should it matter so much to Jules that Ben hadn’t died while he was doing the one thing he truly loved? The one thing he was ready to give up, because he claimed to love Jules even more…

Oh, God. He was going to be sick.

“It was an IED,” Max told him as Sam filled the glasses anyway. “A roadside explosion.”

“What was he doing out on the road?” Jules asked. Ben had told him in many of his e-mails that he rarely left the Marine camp any way other than in his beloved helicopter.

“He’d just flown a mission,” Max tried to explain. “He’d caught enemy fire, and his chopper was damaged, but he brought it down safely, saving the lives of his crew. The problem was, he didn’t make it back to the airfield. HQ sent a vehicle to pick them up, get them back to camp. When the bomb went off…” Max shook his head. “They must’ve been right on top of it.” Misery was in his eyes. “They were all killed. Ben and all the men and women he’d saved, just hours earlier.”

Jules knew a thing or two about explosives. For a bomb to cause that kind of damage to an armored vehicle…But then he realized. “The transport wasn’t armored, was it?”

Max shook his head. “No.”

“What the fuck —”

“They were in a safe zone,” Sam chimed in, his voice dark. “Supposedly.”

God, what a senseless waste.

Sam pushed Jules’s glass closer to him.

“I really don’t want it,” Jules told his friend.

“Maybe it’ll help,” Sam said, but when Jules just looked at him, he chastised himself. “Yeah, that was stupid. I know nothing’s going to help. I’m just so sorry.”

“Thank you for coming,” Jules said. He looked at Max, too. “And for getting the details for me.”

“Lys would’ve been here, too,” Sam said, “if she could’ve. She was already in Spain—I had to talk her out of swimming the Atlantic to get to you.”

“When’s the service going to be?” Jules asked Max. “I know this isn’t a good time to tend to personal matters, and I understand that I won’t be able to go over there to…” He had to stop. Clear his throat. “Bring him home. But I would like to attend the service, if I can…”

He trailed off, because Sam was staring into his drink, and Max was looking down at the floor.

“You tell him,” Sam ordered Max, looking at Jules with an expression that was part heartfelt apology, part homicidal rage. “I’ll just fuck it up.”

The anger wasn’t aimed at Jules—it had to do with the additional bad news he was about to hear.

“Ben died two weeks ago,” Max told him quietly. “He’s already been interred—”

Two weeks…

“—at a military ceremony up in Arlington,” Max continued through the roaring in Jules’s ears. Ben had already been buried, and no one had called Jules to let him know, to let him attend.

But two weeks…?

“When?” Jules asked.

“The ceremony was Thursday,” Max said. “The casualty report didn’t cross my desk until today. Laronda noticed Ben’s name and brought it to my attention.” He was as angry about this as Sam was. “I couldn’t believe no one had contacted you.”

“No,” Jules said. “When—what day—was he killed?”

Max had some papers folded up and jammed into his inside jacket pocket. He tried to flatten them on the table as he searched for the information. He found it and read off both the date and the time.

Jules nodded.

“Ah, fuck,” Sam breathed, as usual way too perceptive for someone who wore cowboy boots and meant it. “What was it, the same day he sent you that e-mail?”

Yes, it was. And thanks to the Internet, by the time Jules had received that e-mail, Ben was already dead.

He’d never seen Jules’s reply—as brief as it had been.

Ben had taken a huge risk—and it was a career risk as well as an emotional one—by putting everything he was feeling into words, by labeling it love, and honoring and prioritizing that love above all of his other hopes and goals and dreams.

And then he’d gone to put in a hard day’s work for an organization that wouldn’t have wanted him had they known who he really was. And he’d died because the administration thought they could win a war on the cheap.

“What I don’t understand”—Sam was putting voice to his fury—“is why his parents didn’t get in touch with you.”

“He wasn’t out to them,” Jules said. “They didn’t know.”

“But he was an officer, he probably had a laptop—”

“He did,” Jules confirmed. Ben had told Jules that he’d kept their e-mails—they’d exchanged scores of them. And Ben had said he’d saved them all. If his parents had discovered the truth—and it was hard to imagine that they hadn’t—they’d made a choice to keep it hidden, at Jules’s expense. “But that’s how it goes when you live in the closet, when your entire life’s a lie. Some of the people you love—people who love you—don’t get to come to your funeral.” He stood up. “Excuse me. I have to go throw up now.”

He wasn’t going to make it up to his room, so he hurried for the men’s that was out in the lobby.

“Jules.” He was stopped by a hand on his arm by…

What was Robin still doing here? He’d never left, Jules realized. He’d stayed in the bar.

“I couldn’t help but overhear,” he told Jules now.

“Shit,” Jules swore, because here came Sam, making sure he wasn’t being accosted by some stranger.

“Everything okay?” Sam drawled, his sharp gaze missing nothing, including the hand Robin quickly reclaimed.

“This is my friend, Sam.” It was probably beyond absurd to exchange social niceties, considering he was moments from barfing on both of their shoes, but Jules didn’t quite know what else to do. Of course, once he’d introduced Sam, he realized he probably shouldn’t reveal Robin’s name in a hotel lobby, surrounded by curious onlookers, so it was even more awkward and strange.

And then there they were, two of the most important men in his life—the ones still living, that is—gazing at each other with mutual distrust in their ridiculously similar blue eyes.

Sam’s squint was particularly narrow. It was clear he recognized Robin, but just couldn’t place him. And God knows Robin had heard quite a bit about Sam from Jules.

Under other circumstances, it would’ve actually been funny—like a big, giant cosmic joke on Jules—because Robin and Sam had almost the exact same coloring and build. Sam was a little taller, but other than that, they could have been brothers.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for your loss,” Robin told Jules, his face a mask. “I really am.”

He headed for the door out of the hotel, but then turned and came back. One thing about actors—they always made excellent choices in terms of dramatic moments.

“Apparently I don’t rate a name.” Robin leaned in close to tell Sam, both anger and hurt making his lowered voice shake. “I’m just some random Friday-night fast fuck.”

Oh, shit. “Robin,” Jules said, but Robin was already running out the door. This time he didn’t stop.

“Robin?” Sam repeated, heavy on the incredulity. Over the past few years, he’d heard quite a bit about Robin from Jules, and most of it included the phrase I’d have to be crazy to get involved with someone as messed up as he is. “As in Chadwick?”

Finding that men’s room was still paramount, but now Jules had two other important bullet points on his To-Do list.

Get a verbal ass-kicking from Sam—and Max, now, too, since he’d come out to see where Sam had gone, and had heard everything—and chase after Robin.

Figuring out how to respond to Ben’s e-mail was a problem Jules would no longer have to worry about. The stark reality of that—the knowledge that all possibility of a relationship was gone, not by the difficult choice that he’d already made, but because Ben was gone, forever…Jules had such a sudden, sharp sense of loss, he had to sit down.

But there was nowhere to sit. And his phone was ringing.

He checked the caller ID, hoping it was Robin, calling back to apologize for his knee-jerk reaction to a simple misunderstanding. Despite what Max and Sam thought, despite what Ben may have thought, Jules wasn’t in a relationship with anyone.

But it wasn’t Robin. It was Annie.

She didn’t start with an exchange of pleasantries—she just got right into it after he answered.

“We’ve got a problem.” She was speaking quietly, as if not wanting to be overheard. She was also talking very rapidly, and Jules had to put his finger in his other ear to hear her. “Gordie Junior is here. In Ric’s office. Ric told me to stay upstairs, and I did. I am. So far. But I looked out the window, because I heard this noise in the garden, and it’s Lillian Lavelle. She’s dyed her hair brown, but it’s definitely her. She must know that Junior’s here—she’s got her gun. I’ve been trying to call Ric on his cell, but he won’t pick up, but maybe he’ll answer if you call. Gotta go.”

Click.

“I’ve got trouble. Do you have a car?” Jules asked Sam and Max as he speed-dialed Ric.

“Out front, in the lot.”

“I need help. Are either of you carrying?” Jules asked as headed for the door. He himself was without a weapon.

Max answered. “I’m not, but Starrett is. He’s got an entire suitcase, for Spain.”

“It’s sealed,” the cowboy pointed out.

“Break it open,” Jules ordered as his call went right to Ric’s voice mail. “I’ve got a situation unraveling.”

“What’s going on?” Max asked.

Sam sprinted ahead, both leading the way and unlocking the rental car’s trunk. He pulled out a metal suitcase, tossing it into the backseat. He threw the car keys to Max. “Don’t let vomit boy drive.”

“I’ve got a vengeful ex–porn star,” Jules said as he got into the front seat and Max started the engine, “armed with a.44-caliber weapon, bent on murdering our prime suspect. Take a left out the driveway.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.” Sam started laughing from the backseat, as he opened his metal case and started putting together a small arsenal of handguns.

“It’s not funny,” Jules said sharply. “If we lose our suspect, we’ll probably lose Tango Two. Or maybe she’ll miss the suspect and kill one of my civilian team members instead. That’ll be a laugh riot.”

Sam shut up.

“I’ve already lost my share of friends today,” Jules told him.

“Sorry,” Sam said as he handed Jules a Sig P226, grip first.

“And, sweetie?” Jules said, double-checking the nicely balanced handgun even as he called Yashi for additional backup. “As far as terms of endearment go, I prefer vomit man. ”

But there was no doubt about it now—getting sick was definitely going to have to wait.