He nodded his agreement with Kara's a.s.sessment.

She wasn't sure if it was okay to say the word aloud, then she considered that they were sitting inside a planning room for The Activity, perhaps the main planning room. Not many more secure places anywhere.

"James Logan," Justin said, making Kara snort with laughter. He grinned at her and she felt the warmth there. It made her less ticked off by how he'd stared at the blond.

"Oh G.o.d, that's perfect, Cowboy."

Everyone else around the table looked mystified. She'd learned that Michael was a very linear thinker without much of a sense of humor that she'd ever seen. The woman, Kara could see, was almost there. Was it a cultural gap that kept her from seeing the joke, or wasn't she sharp enough? Easy to find out.

Because Kara still felt so out of her depth and wound up, she decided to compensate by tipping her chair back and propping the heels of her pretty new boots on the table before speaking.

"James Logan? A particularly lethal and contrary comic book hero."

Still the blank looks all around. Wasn't a soul at the table other than Justin who was up on their comic lore.

"James Logan," Kara repeated once more, then sighed. "Also known as the Wolverine from the X-Men."

The woman burst out laughing. It was a bright merry sound and left Kara feeling far more kindly disposed toward her.

Tom grunted and Michael's brow finally cleared as he caught up with the a.n.a.logy.

"Wolverine," Justin explained for those around the table who were still lost. "In the last few months I've met the women of SOAR's 5th Battalion, D Company"-he tipped his hat to Kara-"Delta Force operators, and The Activity. I figure that the Wolverine must be showing up next, now that I've met a Kidon operator."

Yussel flinched and his eyes shot wide. Tom began nodding as if now things were making sense. Major Wilson simply looked confused, as if he had no idea what they were talking about.

The woman's smile was radiant as she addressed Michael but kept her focus on Kara. "You were right, Colonel Gibson. They both managed that with so few clues. It is very good."

"Anyone care to give me a G.o.dd.a.m.n clue?" Wilson snarled.

"w.i.l.l.y Nilly"-several people around the table chuckled at Kara's nickname for him-"I'm shocked that you haven't heard rumors of Mossad's elite counterterrorism squad. They put the CIA's Special Activities Division to shame for both effectiveness and secrecy. Of course, I never believed the rumors of their existence; they were even spa.r.s.er than The Activity's. But it was the only piece that fits the puzzle this woman presents."

"Tanya," the woman acknowledged without confirming or denying her membership in Israel's Kidon kill squad.

Kara nodded her head. They were in a world of first names only. She felt exposed that she, Justin, and Michael were clearly so well known. Since there wasn't squat she could do about that now, she shrugged it off.

"Okay, Tanya. Spill it." Then Kara remained tipped back in her chair to listen.

"How completely do you trust your people?"

Kara considered Tanya's question. "Varies according to their abilities and my experience with them in general. The personnel of the 5D, immensely. The cowboy"-she hooked a thumb at Justin-"I'd trust him with my life."

Which startled both of them.

Kara's boots slipped off the edge of the table and thunked to the floor, making everyone jump. That couldn't have just come out of her mouth!

Kara only trusted family. Cops' kids learned that one early.

Don't trust outsiders, ever.

Growing up she'd seen too much trouble between even cops and their partners. And though in her neighborhood her parents were typical in still being married, in her military life any marriage that lasted five years beneath the grinding wheel of military deployments was considered a major success. Ten was almost as mythical as Wolverine himself. Outside of the 5D, she didn't know of all that many military marriages that survived even two years.

Trust was for the person who had your back during the firefight...except she'd never been in a firefight.

She'd heard military teams trusted each other with their lives. Kara supposed they had to. Yet another way she didn't fit in. She'd always been safe, outside the action team. She trusted their actions, but it was never her life on the line.

So how was it that the 5D trusted her? How did she become their AMC? It made no sense. The arrogance that she displayed in thinking she could- "Easy there, Brooklyn." Justin's voice was a soft whisper and stopped her crazy spiral.

What if- "Let me get this straight." Justin leaned into the conversation to give her a moment.

He really did have her back, even against her own internal craziness. It was a heady feeling. The possibility of a touchstone in her life. Justin was as rock solid as they came, and somehow it was her that he was there for. She listened to his voice, trusted it to guide her, and let it lead her back into the conversation.

"How many missions fail due to leaked information?" Justin looked at Michael.

His grim expression spoke volumes. "Fewer than fail due to poor intelligence. Which is the purpose behind this group." Michael addressed the last remark to Tanya.

"We do suffer a higher percentage of security failures because Israel is so young and so much less secure," Tanya acknowledged. "On occasion we need a.s.sistance with...security issues to remove them."

"But in this case..." Justin prompted.

"But in this case"-Tanya sighed-"the problem may be on our air base, however, it is not actually 'ours.'"

"The American Camp." Kara knew she was right as soon as she said it. She'd just found the next-level problem.

Tanya tipped her head toward Tom who nodded.

"s.h.i.t!" Justin's curse sounded in the suddenly silent room.

"The mole"-Tanya's tone bore anger as deep as any Kara had ever heard-"the Americans insist, will be Washington's problem. Not because we cannot find him, but because they don't want anyone else knowing about their dirty laundry. So he must be your FBI's to resolve. Our job is to clean up the mess in Israel with no one the smarter-not your people, not my people."

"Captain Moretti." Michael Gibson's voice was soft, pacifying. "I promised Tanya our very best a.s.sets to resolve this matter with absolute discretion."

Kara couldn't react. All she could do was stare at the Delta Force Colonel. What the h.e.l.l was he whistling out his a.s.s? She'd been SOAR mission-qualified for only a handful of months. She'd been the AMC for a handful of weeks.

Granted she was in the 5D, but she was supposed to...

s.h.i.t! She was...

"We're going for a walk." A deep voice cut through the ringing in her ears. "Come along, Kara. Walk and talk." Justin coaxed her to her feet and she stumbled after him, letting him lead wherever he wanted.

As they stepped back out of the building and into the darkness, Justin was thankful for the fresh air, but Kara was still in shock. Justin had thought she was good, but he hadn't known she was that d.a.m.n good. Apparently neither had she, which he rather liked about her.

Feet planted on the ground, that was Kara Moretti.

He led her across the mostly empty parking lot and into the trees, maple and oak. They smelled so different from home.

Home.

He suddenly ached for it. It was May. The plains would be carpeted in a hundred varieties of yellow wildflowers. Amarillo was called the "Yellow Rose of Texas" for a reason. b.u.t.terfly bush and Russian sage would be scenting the night air. The strong southerly winds carrying the warmth of the Gulf Coast northward and the wettest season of the year coaxing the land to bloom with soft rains or rolling thunderheads. Back home the winters were dry and cold, the summers warm and wet. Give him a nightjar call or a screech owl hoot and he'd feel right at home even at one in the morning.

He wanted to show Kara the gra.s.slands and the canyon country. He wanted...so much.

But now was not a time for dreaming. Not of home, not of the woman beside him.

He found a white oak with a heavy, low branch reaching sideways only a few feet above the ground.

Justin lifted Kara up until she was seated on the rough bark and then scooted up beside her. He took her hand. She returned the handclasp as if it was the most natural gesture in the world, not the constant miracle he felt it to be.

"She's pretty," were the first words Kara managed.

"Who?" Not what he'd been expecting at all. "Oh." Why was Kara thinking about Tanya the Kidon agent?

"Good thing I'm not the jealous sort."

"Good thing." Justin could feel himself smiling. "Sweetheart, if you think there's another woman on this planet that I want to be seeing naked more than you, you're even more addle-headed than your average Yankee."

She leaned in and kissed his shoulder. "You're all right for a Texan."

"I take it that's Yankee for you're madly in love with me. I can work with that."

He'd been ready for the punch on the arm that Kara delivered with an impressive force despite the fact that she was laughing.

"d.a.m.n, but you're tenacious, Cowboy."

"Inherited it from Ma." Which made him feel homesick all over again even though he was farther south than Annie was at the moment, what with her still being up in Syracuse, New York.

"Stubborn." Her laugh still died off too fast for Kara Moretti.

"Guilty," he admitted, wondering how to help her. "Of course, if there was a second woman that I wanted to see naked..."

"She's all show." But there wasn't any heat behind it.

And he'd wager that the one thing that the Israeli agent wasn't was all show.

"Too bad she isn't what's bothering you."

"Yeah, too bad." Kara sighed. "s.h.i.t, Justin. I've taken out plenty of bad guys before, but American bad guys? I never had to think about the possibility. What's a girl supposed to do with that?"

Justin hadn't come at it quite that way. Bad guys. Take 'em down was as far as his thinking ever carried him.

It hadn't been Hamas that had killed his crew, but it might as well have been. If he could, with a single stroke, stamp down on every single extremist group and grind them out of existence with his boot heel, he wouldn't be asking if it was right.

The ones who flocked to al-Qaeda, Hamas, or a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob were all the same to him. Not the most compa.s.sionate view.

Kara's heart was bigger than that.

"You're a hard woman to live up to, Kara Moretti."

"I... What? Why on earth would you say that?"

Justin looked up at the canopy of oak leaves. So dense, only the occasional star shone through. If not for the thin crescent of the waning moon, it would be as dark as a cave here in the Virginia woods. Then the rage came from so deep and at such a full gallop that it just snapped out of him.

"I don't get how you extend your heart to people you've never met despite what they've done. I care about you, Kara. I care about my family and my crew. I like your family and what folks I've come to know on the Peleliu. But someone who's out there killing folk because they can? Or because they believe different than other folks do? Any pity I had for them went south the day my crew's lives were burned into my back. Don't ever give me the codes on the Bomb; I'll launch it right up their a.s.ses."

Justin clamped his teeth down on his tongue to try to stop his anger from spilling out even more. Breathe slow, the post-action counselor had told him...after he'd finally woken up in Walter Reed Hospital, ten thousand miles from his dead crew.

If the counselor guy were here now, Justin would use his fist to let him know just what Justin thought of that particular advice. He took a deep breath and did try to let it out slowly. Maybe it even helped...maybe.

Kara kept her silence, used her free hand to start playing with his fingers where they were interlaced with hers. It helped him calm down and focus more than any G.o.dd.a.m.n breathing routine.

"I remember saying once that you should have just gone and gotten mad at me, Justin." She tugged at his index finger, then his thumb. "Must say, I'm rethinking that idea."

Justin tried a dutiful laugh, but not much came out.

"You keep that down deep. World doesn't get to see you mad much."

"That's 'cause I'm a deep guy."

"Deep as s.h.i.t, Cowboy; I've stepped in it and can't seem to climb back out."

Before he could take that wrong, she lifted their joined hands and rubbed the back of his hand against her cheek.

"You're most of the way to convincing me I don't want to climb out either. Next thing I know, you'll have me all snugged down in that pig wallow of happiness of yours. Because no matter what it feels like on the inside, you're pretty incredible from the outside, Cowboy."

Justin was half tempted to say exactly what it felt like on the inside but then decided he'd be far better off keeping his trap shut.

"I'm not deep. I just want to be d.a.m.n clear about what I'm doing before I go and do it." Kara kept his hand between hers and her cheek. "I'm just a girl from Brooklyn, Justin. They want an AMC who can go the distance and not get the team killed along the way. That so ain't me."

Justin laughed. He couldn't help himself.

"What?"

"That is so you, Kara. You have no idea, sweetheart, but that is so you."

"How-"

"You're the G.o.dd.a.m.nedest mama bear I've ever met, maybe even more than the queen mama bear that gave birth to this boy. You'd kill yourself to protect your family. And you've got fences a mile high as you choose who you'll let in."

"I don't have fences." Kara's protest was emphatic as she tried to drop his hand, but he didn't let go.

"d.a.m.n, sweetheart. That's bad news."

"Why?"

Justin wished he could see her face, but the night's shadows were too dense. "Because, Kara, my only hope of winning your love is that I simply haven't climbed over those high barriers of yours. If you don't have fences, then it means that I'm simply not good enough. Don't particularly like the sound of that."

Kara jumped back down to the forest floor and tugged at their joined hands to make him drop off the branch and stand in front of her. Then she slid in against his chest so that he could nuzzle the top of her hair.