Not that he was to blame for his assumptions about her relationship status, but she’d have to make things clearer to quite a few people. First she needed to find Max. She stopped at an intersection and didn’t recognize anything. She’d been walking so fast she hadn’t paid any attention to where she was. Rows and rows of CLUs stretched in every direction. The place was a maze. God, was she lost? She couldn’t be lost. She didn’t have time to be lost. She had to find Max. She half laughed, a painful sound that caught in her chest and tore at her. She was lost and she needed to find Max. Why had it never occurred to her she’d spent so much time avoiding the paths other people laid out for her, she hadn’t been able to see where she wanted to go?

She took a breath, looked around, and picked out a larger building she remembered seeing when she’d been standing on the steps of Max’s CLU. Please let that be the same one. She headed in that direction, checking the markings on the CLUs as she passed. Finally she reached the series of letters she recognized and found Max’s. It looked as it had the first day. Closed and shuttered. Like Max had been when they’d first met. Like she’d been that morning.

Rachel wet her lips, stepped up, and knocked. The silence was so oppressive she had trouble drawing a breath. Sweat misted her temples. Her heart ricocheted around in her chest. She pushed back her hair with both hands and rapped again, louder. “Max, please. Open up.”

The door opened. An African American woman with wary dark eyes and a cautious smile looked out. Her dark green T-shirt and boxers were wrinkled. Her face was creased as if she’d just gotten out of bed.

“Sorry,” Rachel said. “I’m looking for Max.”

The woman tilted her head and squinted against the sun, studying Rachel as if she were an alien presence. “How’d you get here?”

“What? I walked.” Rachel waved behind her. “From—over there.”

“Come on in and get some water. You’ll cook out there.”

The woman held the door and Rachel climbed inside. A blast of cool air hit her and she sighed. “Thanks.”

“Here.” The woman opened a bottle of water and handed it to her. “I’m CC, by the way.”

“Rachel. Sorry if I woke you.” Rachel peered down the length of the CLU, looking for Max.

“You missed her by about fifteen minutes.”

Rachel’s throat tightened. “Where is she?”

“Probably at thirty thousand feet.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Orders came this morning while she wasn’t here. She was due to fly out at ten forty. I helped her pack. Took us under a minute, and she had five to make the airfield. Knowing Max, she did.”

“Fly where?” Rachel said, an ominous stillness seeping through her.

CC grinned. “Stateside.”

Chapter Twenty-six

“Stateside?” Rachel stared at CC, certain she’d heard her wrong. “But…I just saw her. Not even half an hour ago.”

CC shook her head, her wide expressive mouth turning down for an instant at the corners. “Half an hour out here could be a lifetime.”

A chill rippled through Rachel’s chest. A minute out here was a lifetime—or at least life changing. “Are you sure she’s left? Is there any chance I could catch her?”

“I doubt it. When orders come through, sometimes you don’t even have time to pack. And with something like this…” She shrugged. “If there’s a seat on a transport with your name on it, you’ll do anything to fill it. Max probably flagged down someone from the motor pool and caught a ride over to the airfield. I’m sorry.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where she’s going?” Rachel’s thoughts whirled as if in the vortex of a tornado, jumbled fragments spinning around randomly, banging into each other or missing by inches. Making no sense. She’d been running disaster scenarios for the last twenty-four hours—worrying about Max facing Carmody alone, afraid her plan to use Tommy to make Max a public hero would backfire somehow, terrified she couldn’t pull it all off in time. When Max had walked into the room that morning, she’d had to use every bit of her control to maintain her composed façade. All she’d wanted was to jump up and touch her. Instead she’d had to sit there while Tommy interviewed them, pretending to be calm while all the while dying to be alone with Max. Her stomach was on the verge of revolt by the time they’d finished, and then Max had bolted before she could explain.

“If she grabbed a spot on a C-130 she might get a ride straight through to Lejeune or Norfolk.” CC drained a bottle of water and dropped the plastic container into a bucket by her bed along with half a dozen other empties.

“I really need to talk to her.” Rachel hugged her midsection. The thought of never seeing Max again sent a sliver of pain slicing through her.

“She’ll probably be a day or two in transit and then a few more until she’s done with all the separation details. Your best bet is to try tracking her down by phone.”

“Thanks,” Rachel said, her energy finally draining away. She didn’t have a number for her. The idea was almost laughable. She’d put her life in Max’s hands a dozen times. She’d made love with her, for God’s sake, and now Max had vanished and she had no idea where she’d gone. She could find her—she had the connections to do it, if Max even wanted to speak to her after Tommy’s cock-up. She should have told Max everything before…Before what? Before they spent every second working to stay alive, before they fell on each other out of desperation and wild need, before Carmody and his slimy accusations put them in another kind of firefight? Could she possibly have screwed things up more?

Rachel went to the door. “Sorry I got you up.”

“No problem. When you catch up to Deuce in the States,” CC said, “tell her hi for me.”

“Yes,” Rachel said, wondering if that would ever happen. At least Max was safe. Away from whatever quagmire of political blame-placing and manipulation was going on here. She was glad for that. Glad that Max was out of the line of fire. But the emptiness ached more brutally than anything she’d ever known. “I will.”

Steeling herself for the long, hot walk back to headquarters, she stepped outside. A Humvee blocked the road directly in front of the CLU. Kennedy climbed out, a scowl replacing her usual bland expression. Her mouth was set in a tight line, and her brows knotted in the center, creasing her perfect forehead. She jammed her hands on her hips.

“Ms. Winslow.” Kennedy’s voice vibrated with annoyance.

Rachel narrowed her eyes. “I shouldn’t have to remind you I don’t work for you or answer to you, so I won’t.”

Silently, Kennedy opened the rear door for her and held it while Rachel slid in. The door slammed and the Humvee lurched forward. She leaned her head back and stared at the roof. She couldn’t remember ever being so tired, and the last thing she wanted to do was sleep. If she slept, she might dream. If she dreamed, she might remember. The memories were clear enough—terrible enough—while awake. In dreams the horrors took on new life, towering above reason and reality. She wasn’t prepared to risk it—not just yet. If she thought she could close her eyes and dream of Max, she would sleep right there. But she didn’t need to sleep to dream of her either. Her face, her voice, the lingering press of her hands and heat of her mouth surrounded her. God, she wanted her.

Kennedy said from the front seat, “Where would you like to go?”

“The hotel.” Rachel looked out the window as the CLUs faded into a blur of indistinct desert tan. “I’m done here.”

*

Max braced her back against the shuddering side of the C-130’s cavernous belly, closed her eyes, and tried to sleep. The white noise from the droning engine ought to have been enough to drown out her thoughts, but her mind wouldn’t settle. She hadn’t had time to think about anything since she’d gotten back to the CLU and CC had handed her the departure orders, the last thing she’d expected after Carmody’s questions. But her training was ingrained and orders were orders. She didn’t think, she acted, and now here she was rattling around in the dark confines of a cargo plane headed for home. The word didn’t mean much, only a destination, and she didn’t give it much thought. Everything that mattered was behind her and growing more distant by the second.

Her brain struggled to make sense of things. Getting out of Carmody’s sights was a bonus, but she couldn’t quite figure out the how and why of it. A guy like Carmody didn’t quit, and since he hadn’t gotten anything out of her, he couldn’t be done. Her blood chilled. If he was still looking for a scapegoat, that left Grif. No, not Grif. Grif had been unconscious—that was verified and unarguable. That left Rachel.

And she was leaving Rachel behind. Rachel and everything else that had been her life for over a year. Like stepping into a time machine and being instantly transported from one world to another, because that’s what it amounted to. The next time she woke up in her own bed, she wouldn’t be facing the possibility of death at every turn. She wouldn’t be trusting her life to a handful of people—friends—when she set out to do her job. She’d be alone again.

For an instant she wondered if another tour might be the answer. She knew plenty of Joes who re-upped almost as soon as they were stateside. And not just for the reasons the newspapers liked to highlight—the lack of jobs, the strained relationships, the PTSD. Back in the desert, you knew your worth. And when you faced death and won, you were worth plenty.

Heading back to the Iraqi desert or the mountains of Afghanistan wouldn’t get her what she really wanted. Rachel didn’t need her to fight for her. She recalled the way Rachel had looked that morning—comfortable, in control, self-assured. Rachel had already slipped back into her world, her real world. In the jungle, Rachel had been transformed—changed into a different person by the necessity to survive. But they weren’t in the jungle now, and the Rachel Max had known didn’t exist in the world she was headed toward.

*

Somehow, Rachel fell asleep on the bumpy ride back to Djibouti. When the Humvee pulled in beneath the canopy shading the hotel’s large front doors, the change in the engine sound alerted her, and she opened her eyes. Kennedy jumped out and opened her door before she could. Smith joined them and they walked through the lobby together in silence. Smith punched the elevator button and Rachel entered the car automatically. Strange, how everything around her had become monochrome, a world filled with grays. Maybe she was still asleep—sleepwalking, more like it. She leaned against the back wall of the elevator and watched the numbers on the elevator panel flash. She frowned as they sped upward. “I’m on six.”

The elevator was not stopping at any of the other floors. They rode straight to the top and the doors opened. “Where are we going?”

Kennedy stepped out, looked right and left, and said, “Right this way, Ms. Winslow.”

Rachel debated jumping back in the elevator and realized Smith had used a key. She hadn’t really taken note of it at the time. She wouldn’t be able to send the elevator down without it. Lovely.

Kennedy and Smith waited for her to join them. She walked between them down the wide carpeted hall to a door at the end. A Smith clone stood by the door, an earpiece curling behind his left ear. He murmured something into a wrist mic, nodded to Smith, and the door opened from the inside. Kennedy gestured her in.

Half expecting Carmody, Rachel steeled herself and entered a huge suite with French doors opening onto a balcony overlooking the city. She glanced around and her breath caught when she saw the man sitting on a love seat in the lounge area, a table for two laid out in front of him. “Dad?”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Stateside

Max had been back on US soil for ten days, back in New York City half that time, and back to work for close to twenty-four hours. She could have put off returning to the hospital for a few weeks, but why would she? What would she do with herself if she wasn’t working? Her studio apartment in the Village had a reasonable-sized galley kitchen, a bathroom with decent water pressure, and a small living room-sleeping area combined. Perfectly suited to her needs, but not a place where she wanted to spend a lot of time. She slept there, when she slept. When she returned there after a shift, she showered, reheated whatever takeout she’d had for the last meal, slept if she could or went for a run if she couldn’t, and headed back to work. Her real home was the emergency room. She was more at ease in those halls than any place she’d called home except the dirt streets of CLUville. The people were closer to her than any family except her fellow troops. Sure, she wasn’t really close with any of the doctors and nurses and techs she saw every day, but she knew them and they knew her enough to say hello and pass the time in casual conversation. She had human contact. She had a community. She had something to take her mind off what she didn’t have. So she’d called to arrange to return to work even before she’d completed her separation procedures at Lejeune.