Cullen motioned for another round of shots. More drinks were poured and he downed his glass in one motion. Beck didn’t touch his. “Had a feeling this wasn’t just a friendly get-together.” Cullen waved at Beck’s glass. “You going to drink that?”

“I’m good, man,” Beck replied.

Cullen downed it.

“I didn’t realize we were getting drunk tonight.” Huntley blinked those big blues of hers, staring at Cullen with a hint of disapproval. Clearly, she wasn’t leaving. Not so surprising. She usually did what she wanted.

Cullen looked her up and down and felt a flash of irritation again. With an internal curse, he slammed back another shot and let the alcohol slide down his throat. So not cool, man. Her brother is right here.

Over the years, he’d kept dirty thoughts at bay when it came to Huntley. He rarely let himself appreciate the dark blonde hair that fell to the middle of her back. Or her curvy legs. Like nuns and cousins, she was off limits. “I didn’t realize you needed to be consulted.”

“Is that how you speak to my sister?” Beck inhaled. “We’ll have this discussion later.”

Huntley looked good tonight. There was no denying. Too good. Not that she wasn’t pretty, but she was never a wear-makeup-every-day kind of girl. She was the fresh-faced farm-girl type. You ever heard the one about the farmer’s daughter…

Beck shifted beside him again, and Cullen eyed him, guessing his injuries must be paining him. Just another side effect from the mission that had killed Xander. Hell, Beck could have died, too. Cullen should be grateful, he supposed, that Beck had made it out. And he was, except Xander was gone. He couldn’t quite shake that even though it had been months now.

Cullen stared straight ahead, catching glimpses of his stony reflection in the mirror behind the bottles of liquor. Sullen Cullen. He knew that’s what people called him, and he didn’t care. Hell, ever since he was a kid people called him that. Other kids. Teachers. When you never stayed long in one place, you forgot how to smile and make friends. What was the point? By the time he got to know anyone, he’d be gone again.

Now, here at Black Rock, it wasn’t his job to make friends. His job was to train soldiers in explosive ordnance disposal so that they saved lives. Xander was one of the first he had pushed to enter the program. One of the first he trained. One of the few he’d let in. One of the few he called a friend.

And now he was dead.

“It’s about Xander, isn’t it? You finally gonna tell me what happened over there?” He gestured for another drink and watched as the bartender poured it. “When you called to tell us he wouldn’t be coming home, I knew you were holding back. You’re a shit liar, Beck. Out with it. How’d he die? What the hell happened over there?”

As much as Cullen dreaded it, he needed to finally hear it. He’d been waiting to hear this.

Beck lifted his massive chest on a heavy breath. “If I could keep this from you forever, I would, because there’s no sense in both of us feeling guilty, Cullen. But it’s going to come out in the casualty report this week and I want it to come from me.”

Cullen remained very still. Even Huntley looked uneasy.

Beck sighed. “We were extracting a group of POWs. They’d been there a week, but we couldn’t get close enough or get an accurate count…”

Cullen listened to the steady recounting, the scene flashing clearly in his mind speaking only when Beck paused. “Finish what you have to say,” he ground out.

“He got it wrong. The explosive went off and half the tunnel caved in. Most of us were in an offshoot that remained standing.” Huntley leaned against her brother. Beck wrapped an arm around her and looked at Cullen. “This isn’t on you. No amount of training—”

Cullen shook his head. If it wasn’t on him, whose fault was it? He was the one who persuaded Xander to go into EOD. The one who trained him. It was on him and no one else. His fist shot out, sending the shot glasses crashing behind the bar. Bullshit. He shoved back his chair and took off toward the bar exit.

He didn’t need anyone to tell him how to feel. Not even Beck.

He just needed to be alone.

* * *

Huntley’s boot heels clacked on pavement as she hurried out of the bar after Cullen. Of all nights to don a pair of heels, it had to be a night she was required to run.

Cullen’s longer legs put him far ahead of her. She focused on his gray T-shirt and jeans as his lean body cut across the parking lot. Sweet Jesus, these boots were murdering her feet. “Cullen, wait!”

He continued like he hadn’t heard her, striding a hard line through the parking lot and stopping beside his truck. She ran the last bit of distance, determined to catch up with him even if she broke an ankle in these death contraption boots.

“Cullen!” She was almost to him now. The soles of her new boots skidded across loose gravel and her arms flailed at her sides until she regained her balance.

He lifted bloodshot eyes to her, and she knew they were only partly red from alcohol. The news he’d just gotten had hit him hard. The guilt of Xander’s death was etched into every line of his face.

He eyed her impatiently as she came to a clumsy, breathless stop before him. “What, Huntley? I’m not really in the mood right now for this.”

This. Her. Like she was the biggest pain in his ass. Is that how he saw her all these years? She thought he enjoyed hanging out with her. An itchy feeling swept up her neck and swarmed her face. Did he resent keeping an eye on her for Beck? God knew he could have been doing other things with his time.

Her gaze flicked from him to the keys in his hand and resolve hardened inside her. Fine. She was about to become an even bigger pain in his ass. This friendship went both ways. He took care of her. Now it was her turn to take care of him. She was an emergency room nurse. She handled people in all manner of conditions. This wouldn’t be such a stretch for her. Except Cullen wasn’t some stranger. He happens to be someone you regularly imagine naked.

“You’re not driving,” she announced, adopting the voice she used with wayward patients.

“I’ll be fine. I only had a few—”

“You only had a few that I saw. You were drinking before I even showed up.” She snatched the keys from his hand.

He growled. It was the only word to describe it. The sound made the tiny hairs at her nape prickle with awareness. With his tall, hard body, dark hair and molten chocolate eyes, he rocked sexy. She couldn’t walk down the street beside him without women breaking their necks to look him over.

But right now this awareness was different. For the first time he looked at her with an intensity that made her feel like a woman. Not his friend. Not Beck’s sister. She felt stripped bare and vulnerable, the sole object of his rapt concentration.

She was also pretty sure he wanted to strangle her.

A vein throbbed in his forehead. She’d seen him like this one time before. They’d been leaving Java Joe’s and someone had left his dog in the car on one of the hottest days of summer. Cullen had marched back inside and confronted the asshole with a few choice words.

God, she really was messed up. He was pissed and glaring at her and it actually gave her a thrill. She had to stop this. Get a boyfriend. Get laid. Stop fixating on Cullen like he was some forbidden dessert.

He held out his hand. “Hand them over, sweetheart.”

Her fingers tightened around the keys, the metal digging into the tender flesh of her palm. She wasn’t about to hand over his keys. He made a grab for them, but she thrust her fist behind her back, yelping when he wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her against him in one hard move that brought them nose to nose.

The heels of her boots lifted off the ground, her toes grazing earth. Her eyes bugged as she stared down at him. Blinking was impossible. His forearm felt rock solid around her. She was no lightweight. She was five feet eight, and it had been years since she felt comfortable in a bikini … hell, even a swimsuit. Her breasts pillowed against his chest, and heat scalded her face as her nipples hardened. Please, please, don’t let him notice that.