Operation Power Play Read Online Free PDF Page B

problem seemed a bit soft for the rugged former Marine, who looked as if he’d be more inclined to take on a herd of killers or an approaching army. Although he was Foxworth, and Brett knew he believed in the cause, and they took on some things that would seem insignificant to outsiders. “I’m hoping there’ll be a simple answer.”
    Rafe’s mouth quirked, and he looked down at Cutter. “Not likely, when this guy’s involved.”
    “I was afraid of that,” Brett said glumly.
    “And he is one of us, so if he’s involved, we are.”
    “You’re on vacation.”
    “Boring,” Rafe said with a one-shouldered shrug. “I hate not working.”
    Brett laughed. Then stopped when he realized he felt the same way. And that empty-lives thought came back to him.
    “I’ll keep that in mind if my guy comes up empty,” he said quickly, quashing the unwelcome thoughts. “I’d like to be able to help Sloan out.”
    He realized what he’d done the moment he’d said it, but somehow trying to correct it to
Sloan’s aunt
seemed as if it would only make it worse.
    “Sloan?” Rafe asked.
    “Sloan Burke. The niece,” he said, hoping the short answer would suffice.
    Rafe went very still. Brett felt the change as much as saw it.
    “Cutter led you to Sloan Burke? The Sloan Burke?”
    Whatever was coming next, Brett didn’t want to hear it. But he knew he had to ask. “
The
Sloan Burke?”
    “Wife of Chief Petty Officer Jason Burke?”
    Brett absorbed it like a punch to the gut. He’d been right. She was married. The involuntary and instantaneous recoil at the words told him just how foolish he’d gotten. And in such a short time it was almost embarrassing. What the hell was he thinking?
    “I don’t know,” he managed.
    It shouldn’t have meant anything. She was a woman he’d spoken to for maybe fifteen minutes and seen a couple of times before. It meant nothing. He wasn’t in the mood or the market for anything more, hadn’t been since—
    “About thirty-five now?”
    “I... Yes.”
    As if he’d just remembered he had it, Rafe pulled out his phone and began to key in a search. After a moment he selected one of the results, tapped the screen again, expanded an item and finally held it up for Brett to see.
    It was a photograph. Of Sloan. Sitting at a table, in front of a microphone, rows of people sitting behind her.
    Something stirred inside him, not because she was lovely in that picture, because in fact she was not. Her hair was pulled into a severe knot at the back of her head, she looked pale, and above all she looked tired. Exhausted.
    She looked fragile, and it made his stomach knot.
    She’s married,
he told himself. It was none of his business. He scanned the other people in the photo, wondering if one of the men was her husband. And how he could have let her get to this point.
    “What is this?” he asked finally.
    “Sloan Burke,” Rafe said, in a tone Brett could describe only as admiring, “is a crusader. Of the best kind. Ask anyone who’s in the service or has been, and I’ll bet he’s heard of her. And if she needed help, anyone who’s been in boots on the ground would come running.”
    Rafe glanced at the image again before he blacked out the home screen and slipped the phone back in his pocket.
    “Quinn, Teague and me included,” he said, then added, “She’s exactly the kind of person Foxworth was founded for.”
    Brett told himself he would be better off not asking. Not knowing. He would just do this little thing, maybe help straighten out a paperwork glitch, and then slip back into his quiet, unrippled life. And Sloan would go back to hers, with her husband.
    He asked anyway. “What’s the story?”
    Rafe fell silent. Studied Brett again, silently. At last he said, “You sure you want to know?”
    I’m sure I’d be better off if I didn’t.
“Tell me.”
    One of Rafe’s dark brows arched upward, and Brett knew he hadn’t missed the indirectness of the answer. But after a moment