“…So it’s time for this to end. Before anything really happens.”

No, no, no, no. Stop.  Don’t say no more!

“Chris… He didn’t see anything. He don’t suspect a thing!”

Please… 

“This time. But what about next time?  Vin, we can’t afford this.”

No, Chris.  Don’t say it!

“But…”

“Vin, think about it!  Both of our careers could be on the line over this.  Is it worth it?”

Oh, God, oh, God. Worth it?  Worth anything!

“All for the sake of fun and games.”

Not games.  Not for me.

“No strings, remember? No entanglements.”

Too late.  Way the fuck too late.

“Chris…”

“No, Vin.” 

“We been careful.  We can be more careful.  No more messin’ around in the office, no more…”

“Vin!  Use your damned head! 

“Chris, I… It ain’t just…”

“Don’t, Vin!  We agreed to the rules.  I don’t want to hear whatever it is you’re about to say!”

Don’t do this.  Oh, God, Chris, don’t do this to me…

“Maybe for me it ain’t…”

“Enough!  This was the deal.  For the fun of it, until something better came along, or until it started to cause problems. Well, JD practically walking in on us is a problem, pard, so it stops now.”

No, no, oh no.

“Now get back out there, Tanner.   You’ve still got that report to finish.   You’ll see, Vin.  This is the way it has to be.”

Somehow he made it through Chris’s office door and back to his desk.  Amazingly, the normal riot of his teammates’ post-takedown activities was unaffected by the bomb so recently detonated in that inner office. 

Report.  He had to do his report.

But he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t drag air past the paralysis in his throat.

Stupid, stupid.  How could I have been so stupid!

He’d known.  Could never have rationally thought it would end up any differently.

But it was hard to be rational when your fiercest desire was offered up on a platter. 

He’d known better from the start, and he’d done it anyway.

Y’r own damn fault, Tanner.   Ya do dumb things, and ya pay.

He stared at the little bronco riders cavorting on his screen.  Touched a key to banish the screen saver and expose the barely begun incident report.

Vaguely, he noted that he’d inadvertently misspelled his name, jerked as he’d been from the concentration it took for him to type coherently when Chris so peremptorily summoned him.

The fingers of his right hand slowly corrected the error, then lifted from the keyboard to spread wide over his chest. 

Was his heart still beating?   Oh, yes.  Traitor that it was.  Still thumping away despite disaster. 

Okay.  Wasn’t the first time his life had fallen apart around him.   He could survive this. Just put one foot in front of the other and get on with it. He could survive.

The hand joined its fellow back on the keyboard, beginning the laborious task of describing the culmination of the recent assignment.

Yes.  He could do this.  Surviving was easy. You just had to do it.

Yeah, right. 

He could.

Why the hell were his hands so cold?

Chris Larabee jerked to his feet and stalked back and forth across his small office, trying to work warmth into his extremities.

He fought against it, but the pull was inexorable.   With each pass, his gaze snuck over, completely against his will, to catch a glimpse of the man he’d just dismissed from his office.

A man who sat staring blankly at the monitor screen before him, eyes distant and devastated.

This was the right thing to do.   The only thing to do. 

Surely Vin could see? Surely he understood.

Though he tried his best to deny it, Chris knew that JD’s near intrusion was an excuse.  One he’d been subconsciously looking for.

Not that he didn’t enjoy being with Vin. God, did he enjoy it!

But it was getting… uncomfortable.   It was making him nervous.

Okay, he was getting scared.   Because this thing with Vin was threatening to become much more than he’d intended. 

He really had no problem with the notion of finding comfort and fun with another man.  With Vin.

But that was all it was supposed to be. 

What he wanted for real in his life was wrapped up in that poignant dream of wife and family. Right?

And he’d never have that if he let himself give in to what he knew was happening with Vin. 

Oh, God, but what was happening with Vin was so sweet. So satisfying. So goddamn dangerous, because he knew it could develop into something that would put that dream forever out of reach.

So it had to stop. Right now, before they lost themselves in it.   Before it was too late to step back to where they’d been a year ago.

His attention was rudely drawn back to the outer office by the crash of a chair toppling.  His gaze locked onto that slender body as Vin jerked his jacket from the hook behind his desk, stumbled over his downed chair, and fled the office.

It had to stop. Before it was too late.

He firmly refused to pay attention to that tiny voice whispering from just behind his right ear.

Too late. 

“They are, apparently, extremely interested. In my opinion, we are ready.”

Chris nodded, flipping through Standish’s typically meticulous status report.  “You still clean?”

“I have no reason to suspect that I am being regarded as anything other than that which I purport to be..”

Buck leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.   “These guys look like real bootleg firecrackers, Chris.  They could blow any way, any time.  I don’t like the way this feels.”

“Mister Wilmington, I assure you that I have considered the unpredictable nature of these… gentlemen in my assessment. They are prone to unexpected actions, but they are also very eager to rid themselves of these very hot properties.  They will jump in the direction I’ve prepared for them.”

Chris pursed his lips, considering the operation as proposed by the southerner.  It looked good, and the chance to put a lid on this bold young gang of thieves was truly enticing.   The list of armament contained in the cache of weapons they’d recently liberated from an army shipment would chill the marrow of any law enforcement officer. He’d take a lot of risks to get those arms back in the hands of the appropriate authorities, and thus prevent them from wreaking carnage in the streets of Denver.

He kept his eyes carefully directed at the pages of the report.  “Tanner?   You take a look?”

The delay in the response was just a few seconds too long. The sharpshooter’s voice was soft and level. “Yeah.   Got a good position; good line of sight, long as Ez keeps ‘em where he said.”

“That should present no difficulty.”

Chris nodded sharply, then gathered the pages of the report and stood.  “Then it’s a go. Set it up for Friday.”

He stepped briskly toward the conference room door, only to be halted by that same soft, level voice.  “Chris?”

He stiffened, then turned slowly, meeting Vin’s eyes for the first time since he’d called the team in to review the operation. The younger man had remained seated as his teammates trooped for the door. 

Chris looked away from the pain in those blue eyes. 

No way, Vin.  I ain’t buying what you’re selling!

“C’n we talk, private?”

“I don’t see anything for us to talk about, Tanner. You said you were okay with this; are there problems you didn’t see fit to bring up when everyone was in the room?”

“Ya know that’s not… I…” In a burst of uncharacteristic temper, Vin kicked out, sending Buck’s unoccupied chair spinning across the floor to slam against the wall.   He lurched to his feet, reaching out to grab and close the door.

Chris caught it midswing, forcing it to remain open.

“Then I don’t figure there’s anything we need to discuss.  Do your job; get ready for the take-down Friday.”

Grimly maintaining his control of the door, he stepped out into the main office, then turned to look back in the younger man’s direction.

“And you make sure you’ve got your mind on the job, Tanner.  You get distracted, and it could be Ezra’s or Nathan’s life.”

He winced inwardly at his own words.   Unfair, he knew.   Vin was always focused on the job. But the man had to leave this alone. 

Resolutely, he forced himself to walk back to his own office, refusing the forlorn urge to glance back over his shoulder.

Let it go, Vin.  Let it go. 

Jesus!  I gotta let it go!  And I can’t do it if you keep looking at me with that hammered expression in your eyes.

Let me go, Vin.

Buck ran the comb carefully through his dark hair, then grinned at himself in the mirror. 

Lordy, Stud, ya sure still got it!

He tossed the comb back into the drawer and strode out into the messy common area of the loft space he shared with JD.

“Hey, Kid!” he called. “The lovely Dorothy awaits. Don’t wait up.”

“Hey, Buck.” 

He paused at the unenthusiastic response.

“You okay, JD?  You worried about Friday?”

The young man appeared at the door to his tiny room.   “Nah, piece of cake. It’s just…”

“What?  You sick?”  Buck drew a deep breath, thinking briefly, longingly of legs up to here, and offered the supreme sacrifice.  “I could stay home tonight.”

JD grinned, shaking his head.   “Ah, you are too good to me, Buck.   But I wouldn’t want to deprive poor Doris…”

“Dorothy!”

“Oh, yeah… Dorothy of the chance to spend the evening with the legendary Buck Wilmington.”

Buck bared his teeth in a tiger’s smile. “Ya got that one, Kiddo! Nice to see you’re finally learning to appreciate the master! So what’s with the droopy mouth?”

“Ah, it’s nothing. Just…  Buck, what the hell’s wrong with Chris?”

The smile faded.  “As in…?”

“He’s acting weird. Especially to Vin.  And Vin…”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“They just aren’t acting normal.   I tried to get Vin to go mountain biking with me last weekend, but he turned me down.”

“Well, ya know, Kid, that don’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with Vin.”

JD swatted him in the arm. “Shut up, Buck!  We’ve been talking about renting a couple of good bikes and making a Saturday of it for weeks.  But he just… wasn’t interested.  It’s like his mind’s always somewhere else.”

Buck shrugged.  “I can’t ever figure out what goes on between those two, JD. It don’t help that half the time nobody else can hear whatever it is they’re ‘discussing.’  Just let ‘em alone for a while. They’ll work it out.  They’re too tight to let anything come between them for long.”

Shrugging, the younger man dropped down to sprawl among the game cases and junk food wrappers on the couch.   “I know.  It’s just…”

Buck ruffled the youngster’s overlong hair. “Just that you miss your playmate, Kid. You can go tear up the countryside some other weekend.  Let Chris and Vin take care of themselves.  And you… why don’t you call Casey and see what she’s up to tonight.   Ya got all night to yourself.”

JD pushed the hand away from his hair, scowling up at Buck.  “Get outta here, Buck. Leave me and Casey alone. And you better not be gone all night.  Whatever else is bothering him, Chris will definitely shoot you if you come in the day before a big bust looking like you’ve been up all night.”

Laughing, Buck headed for the door. “You just have fun tonight, Squirt. Ol’ Buck can look out for himself.”

He pulled the door closed behind him and ran down the stairs.

Stubbornly, he tried to put JD’s questions out of his head.  He had a big, big night planned, and he wasn’t going to let Chris-the-grump and a sorry-assed Texan spoil it for him.

But just the same… he wondered what was going on between those two.

“Tanner, you in position?”

**Yessir.**

The voice in the ‘phones was all business.

“Okay, everyone set? Let’s do this by the numbers—no surprises.   On Tanner’s word, be ready for the takedown.”

A sequence of quick acknowledgements, then silence. Moments later, he heard the sound of approaching engines, just as the radio crackled again.

**It’s on.**

Right.  Though he saw no movement around the other crates in the noisome alley, he sensed his team members notching up their attention levels, waiting for Ezra and Nathan to lead their pigeons into the net. Reflexively, he glanced upward, knowing even before his head tilted that he’d not spot his sharpshooter.

Frowning, he pulled his attention back to the ground. Tanner could take care of himself.

Two cars pulled into the alley, Ezra’s sleek Jaguar following an ostentatious grey limo with darkened windows.

Chris’s two agents exited the Jag as three men slowly emerged from the other car.  A brief conversation, then Ezra snapped his fingers, and Nathan pulled a steel case out of the Jag.  The three strangers moved closer to Ezra as the southerner slid a pair of keys into the locking mechanism.

||click|| **Gun!**

“ATF!”

Simultaneously, Chris’s warning cry and the heavy crack of a long-range rifle split the near-silence.  One of the three strangers jerked and went down, a handgun flying into the trash alongside the limo.

As the ground-based members of Team Seven rose from cover, guns centered on the still-standing pair of thieves, one of the men reached desperately for Ezra, an arm snaking around the man’s neck as the other hand dove into his pocket.

A second air-splitting report from the rifle, and the man jerked away from Ezra and flopped against the Jag, then onto the ground, leaving a red trail along the glossy fender of the car.

The third man stared, stunned, at his fallen partners, then shot his hands into the air. 

As Josiah jerked the standing man’s wrists down and back for cuffs, the captive’s eyes nervously scanned the upper stories of the buildings overlooking the alley. 

“All clear!” Chris barked as he secured the hands of the first of the rifleman’s victims.  The man had taken the shot in his shoulder—disabled, but not killed. Tanner’s favored shot.

But the second man was very dead.   Center mass shot, right on target.

Higher stakes, higher penalties.  

“We get ‘em all?”

As always, Tanner’s silent appearance in their midst startled. 

“Damn, boy.  Can’t you just whistle or something?”  Josiah grinned up at the Texan.  “My old heart’s gettin' too delicate for these shocks.”

“Sorry.”  There was no answering smile, just a small nod.

“Really, Mr. Tanner.” Ezra’s petulant voice emerged from behind his beloved Jaguar, where he crouched inspecting the finish for damage. “I would appreciate it greatly if you’d attempt to avoid shooting people when they are standing next to my car. Blood is very difficult to get out of the detailing!”

Ignoring the tease, Tanner moved slowly around the car, staring down at the man he’d killed.

“My sincere thanks, Vin.” Ezra’s voice was gentle.  He stood and faced the Texan.  “That shot in all probability saved my life.”

Tanner gazed at the dead man for a long moment, then lifted his eyes to meet Ezra’s.  His somber expression lightened, and he nodded briskly. “Welcome,” he murmured.

Chris turned sharply away, forcing himself to give attention to the ambulance pulling up at the end of the alley.   After all his experience, it still sorrowed Vin to kill. And it should have been him offering that absolution.  Not Standish. 

Drawing his breath harshly past his teeth, he barked, “Let’s stop wasting time!  Get this mess cleaned up and get back to the office. Tanner, you know the drill.”

Vin looked over at him, then nodded, attention dropping to the rifle in his hands.  Carefully, he cleared the magazine, and handed the rifle and cartridges to Chris. Without a word, he turned and headed down the alley toward the street and the ATF van secreted in a nearby cul-de-sac.

Chris watched him for a moment, then turned back to the clearing up.

Stubbornly, he ignored the churning sense of wrongness twisting his belly toward nausea.