4-Bound By Danger by SE Jakes Read Free Book Online Page A

eventualities since they got into the car.
    He didn’t doubt Sawyer and Rex were as well.
    It took just under an hour before they reached the safety of the FOB, just in time, too, since smoke had started pouring out of the engine a mile back. Medics swooped in immediately to help the injured, and Jace brushed off the doc’s offer to stitch his arm up for the moment.
    “It’s not that bad,” Jace said.
    “I’ll give you fifteen minutes to get your ass inside to me,” Doc called over his shoulder, and Jace nodded, although he had absolutely no intention of following that order.
    He pulled his phone out and checked messages—it had been vibrating for the past several hours, but checking it had been the last thing on his mind.
    The text wasn’t from the number he’d been hoping to see, the way he’d seen nothing for the past month. Instead, it was from Kenny.
    Shit. Shit. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and began to walk away.
    Jace had been halfway to Afghanistan when he got the first text. Code, and he’d known exactly who it was from.
    The texts, though they always seemed to come in at the right time, shorthand, were references to things that only Jace would know from their weekend together.
    Those words warmed him when the cold, brutal nights had him hunkered down, waiting to make the kills he needed. It followed that way, a daily check-in for nearly five months, and then nothing.
    He’d steeled himself for the worst and realized he’d found it.
    “Hey, you all right?” Sawyer tugged his arm. “You just went white as a ghost.”
    He wasn’t—and he couldn’t just shrug it off. “Just some bad news from home.”
    Sawyer watched him carefully, his eyes narrowed with concern. “It’s not…you know…”
    Since their conversation in the caves, the men talked with each other about most things, from the banal to the serious. Sawyer knew that, while he had yet to follow through on his promise, Jace had. And now it was over before it had ever really started. “He’s… They said it was a car bomb.”
    “Do you think it’s true?” Sawyer asked him.
    “I don’t know what to believe. I haven’t heard from him since right before it happened.” Jace’s inherent suspicion nagged at him, but either way, Tomcat could be lost to him forever.
    “I’m sorry, man.”
    Jace nodded. “I’m gonna take a walk.”
    “I’ll cover for you with Rex—and I’ll take the first doc appointment.”
    “I owe you,” Jace told him as he walked away toward a more secluded area of the FOB to try to collect himself. He knew Sawyer was concerned—once, that would’ve annoyed the hell out of him, but now he was all right with it.
    It had taken him forever just to get friendly with one of the guys on his SEAL team—Sawyer had started to break down his walls with good conversation and an excellent aim with a firearm but sealed their friendship during their night in the cave.
    Since then, the men had been as thick as thieves, with Jace trying to nudge Sawyer gently in the direction of Rex, Sawyer bucking back as hard as he could, and Jace…well…he’d thought he was finally moving forward, and now everything had come to a screeching stop.
     
     
    Rex poured cool water over his shaved head and checked his team from a distance.
    None of these men would ever admit how hurt or tired they were, and it was his job as CO to do it for them.
    His gaze lingered on Sawyer longer than anyone else, the way it had since he’d taken command of this SEAL team. Watched Sawyer talk to Jace, and Rex realized that Jace looked pale as shit.
    He’d wait for Jace to walk away before heading over to get the intel from Sawyer. The boy couldn’t refuse him, even though he could refuse to admit why that was, and Rex wasn’t in any position to push him. Not as his CO, for sure.
    But man, if Sawyer finally made his move, Rex would have him pinned and naked in seconds. And after all the years of mourning a man he’d never had the