Page 17 of Sniper's Pride

Griffin smirked at Blue and made an anatomically impossible suggestion, which, of course, only made Blue— and everyone else—laugh harder. Smug bastard.

“Do we have rules against helping blond princesses, pampered or otherwise?” Isaac asked mildly, cutting through the hilarity without having to raise his voice. He studied Griffin like he could see straight through him. He probably could. “Because that sounds a lot like your thing, not ours.”

Griffin wasn’t surprised when the vote went againsthim, with more talk of peaches and princesses before they moved on to thornier issues involving ongoing cases. There was a possible situation developing in nearby Juneau, but he gave their disgruntled would-be enemy only half of his attention while his temper kicked at him like a lit fuse.

He knew Mariah was nothing more than another client. He didn’t have to like her, he only had to save her, and that shouldn’t have been difficult. It was one more mission, and missions didn’t require that he turn himself inside out with souped-up enthusiasm—they required his skill and dedication.

That was what he was telling himself after the meeting, out on the rambling porch that ran along the front of the lodge and offered views out over the water of the protected cove in the long blue spring twilight. He didn’t need to like any part of this. He’d performed the initial intake, he’d handed her cell phone over to Oz so he could make sure no one could trace it without Alaska Force’s knowledge, and now that the vote was in, Griffin was running point on Mariah’s situation. He didn’t have to start cartwheeling around, pretending he was happy about it. Or her. Like most things in his life, it wasn’t required that he love every moment. Or any moment. He just had to do it.

Her case was simple enough. Identify and neutralize the threat. Impress upon her husband that divorce was the better choice, assuming he was behind the attempts on her life. And keep her alive while they did it.

The lodge door slapped open, and Griffin knew it was Isaac who stepped out to join him without having to look. He recognized the other man’s tread and the patterof his dog’s feet, as Horatio—far smarter than most people, with his different-colored eyes and a huge helping of his owner’s attitude—had come outside with him.

The fact that Griffin could hear Isaac coming meant he had something to say.Great.

None of his other brothers would roll up on him when he was clearly dealing with stuff. There were certain boundaries between snipers and everyone else. It was the nature of the job. He’d accepted it a long time ago.

Hell, he’d embraced it.

Isaac came and stood with Griffin because he didn’t care about boundaries, and for a while it was just the two of them, and Horatio at Isaac’s feet. They stared out at the seething dark water of the cove as the tide came in, grasping at the rocky shore. They watched the last hint of light in the sky fade, darkness coming almost two hours later than it had at the start of the month. Spring had finally started showing signs of life around here. The clocks had jumped forward after another deep, dark Alaskan winter, and summer was coming.

But Griffin knew Isaac hadn’t come out here to stare at the scenery or discuss the changing seasons.

“Are you going to be able to handle this?”

Griffin shot him a look. “Of course.”

“She’s not Gabrielle.”

He should have known that was coming. He should have expected it.

“I’m well aware she’s not my ex-fiancée, Isaac.” Griffin could hear his own clipped tone, an unwise choice in Isaac’s presence, but he didn’t stop. “I can actually tell the difference between pretty blond white women.”

But if he expected Isaac to back off, he was about tobe disappointed. His leader reached down and smoothed his hand over Horatio’s head. And Griffin was pretty sure the dog was giving him the sameyeah, rightlook.

Isaac didn’t actually sayyeah, right.He didn’t have to. “You sure about that? I’ve never seen you get bent out of shape about anything. No mission, no matter how screwed up. No person, place, or thing. And especially not a client. Until today.”

“I’m not sure why registering some reasonable skepticism equalsbent out of shape.”

“You seem extra skeptical.”

Griffin shrugged. “You haven’t met her. Maybe when you do, you’ll stop treating me like a high school kid who’s knotted up over some cheerleader and remember that my instincts and interpretations of situations have saved your butt more times than you can possibly count.”

Isaac didn’t say anything. And that was worse than if he had, because it allowed Griffin to replay what he’d said again and again, entirely too aware of how much like a high school kid he’d sounded. He could remember being that high school kid himself before he’d enlisted on his eighteenth birthday, complete with Gabrielle as the cheerleader in question, who he’d beenso surehe was in love with when really he’d been sixteen and an idiot. And even worse than the unscheduled trip down memory lane was his shrug, which was a giant tell that he wasn’t as at ease or comfortable as he was trying to pretend he was—because Griffin wasn’t a fidgeter. He could spend astonishing amounts of time without moving, awake and alert, his entire being focused on a target.

He’d confirmed everything Isaac was saying.

“I haven’t thought about Gabrielle in a long time,” Griffin said stiffly, before Isaac could point any of that out. “It’s like that whole situation happened to someone else.”

Someone significantly dumber.

“I believe you,” Isaac said quietly. Too quietly. Griffin kept his eyes on the water surging at the shore below, but he could feel when Isaac’s sharp gray gaze slammed into him. “But here’s the thing about betrayal. It gets in there and it changes how you think. How you see things. You don’t have to think about it directly for it to color everything.”

“Gabrielle did what was right for her,” Griffin said, hating that it took effort to sound matter of fact. Not stiff or defensive or gruff, because he didn’t like talking about ancient history. Not because she had some hold on him after all these years. She didn’t. “Much as that sucked for me at the time, I can’t blame her. I wasn’t the man she sent off to the Marines.”

“Okay.”

The placid agreement came too quickly to be real. “I see her every year over the holidays. She and Oscar have three kids now. Good cars. Vacations during summer break. A nice house in the same neighborhood where we grew up. As far as I can tell, she’s happy.”

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