After getting out of the service, he’d tried to convince himself that he was free again, but he’d spent too long pretending to be a person he wasn’t in order to blend into his environment, and he couldn’t shake the habit easily.
The fact that he found himself slightly attracted to Zane Garrett added to the frustration of the situation. It was confusing him again and making him seriously cranky. He hunched his shoulders a little more and crossed his arms over his chest, scowling at anything that moved as he waited for Zane to return.
“Let’s go,” Zane murmured when he got back to the table, still chewing on his own emotions.
“Thank Christ,” Ty muttered grumpily as he stood. Zane didn’t answer, just leading the way out the door and heading back to the hotel silently, long legs eating up the concrete.
After several episodes of having to actually jog to keep up, Ty finally huffed loudly and asked, “What the hell, man? You get your hot fudge and suddenly it’s all hurry up and wait?”
“We’ve got work to do,” Zane answered shortly. He knew he was overreacting, but he needed to get back to who he was supposed to be and forget about who he used to be—who he wanted to be. A man who wouldn’t be afraid to do something about the flickering attraction. That man couldn’t exist anymore. He needed to go back to being the straitlaced paper-pusher Ty first met and insulted. That was safe, and it would get the job done. Christ, was he ever f**ked up. Zane wondered if he ought to go see that damn lady headshrinker again. Ty had thrown him for a goddamn loop.
Ty grumbled and jogged again to catch up. “You’re never getting ice cream again,” he muttered.
Zane didn’t object. He needed something to get his mind back on track. Immediately. “One of us needs to go back to the office and find those files I was looking for,” he said as they walked. “I never did call the investigators back about the explosion, and I should check on Henninger and tell him to keep his mouth shut." His voice was back to the monotone he used in the office.
Ty sighed as he listened. It had been brief and pleasant, but the tolerable partner stint appeared to be over. “You know what?” he hissed finally as he grabbed at Zane’s arm to halt him. “I’m getting pretty f**king tired of the Jekyll and Hyde deal you have going.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to Zane, looking at him intently. “You’re not still using, are you?”
Face tightening, Zane jerked his arm away. “You have any idea what deep shit I would get in if I was still using? Fuck, no. Although you may drive me to it!”
“Do you really care what kind of deep shit you get into?” Ty asked as he bristled instinctively.
“Most of the time, yeah, I do. So get off my back,” Zane retorted, trying really hard to keep angry from sliding into livid. He turned into a narrow service alley and pulled out his pack of cigarettes in agitation.
“I’ll stay on your f**king back until I’m convinced you’re not going to get me killed,” Ty growled as he stalked after him.
“I’m not the one who f**ked over my last partner, now am I?” Zane snapped back as he crushed the unlit cigarette between his fingers and swung around to face Ty.
Ty’s entire façade changed, as if someone had flipped a switch inside him. His body tensed and his eyes grew hard and dark. “That’s got nothin’ to do with you,” he growled.
Zane advanced on him, having already lost too much of his cool to be careful. He got into Ty’s face, both insulted and outraged that the man who 124
was supposed to be his partner could really care less about being so. “Yes, it does, because unfortunately, I am your partner now because the last one apparently couldn’t stand you. And you’re not exactly inspiring any trust,”
Zane snarled.
Ty’s impressive control over his volatile temper snapped, and he moved automatically, catching Zane on the chin with a quick left hook.
Unprepared, Zane was only able to turn his face away from the impact to lessen the blow, and he stumbled back. He dropped his ruined cigarette as Ty came at him again, and finally reacting, he managed to spin with the next swing and awkwardly jab his elbow against Ty’s side. He connected with the gun Ty had in the holster under his arm and both men grunted in pain.
Ty staggered to the side, but moved again so quickly that Zane wasn’t ready before he was on him. He took hold of Zane’s shoulder, pulled him closer, rammed his knee up into Zane’s midsection, and shoved him toward the ground.
Zane whuffed and stumbled back, but he managed to keep his feet as his hard-won reflexes kicked in. He took a deep breath and rushed the few feet into the other man, plowing into him before Ty could dance out of his reach. Zane used his own weight to shove the former Marine and send him hard into the brick wall of the alley, and then he backed away, fists up and ready, gasping as adrenaline pumped through him.
Ty hit the wall hard with his shoulder, and pain shot through him like lightning as something crunched in the joint, but he neither registered it nor reacted to it. Instead, he reached out to the dumpster a couple feet away and grabbed the neck of an old beer bottle. He smashed it against the wall and turned to face Zane with something almost like enjoyment in his eyes. He never gave a thought to the guns under his arms, or to the number of ways he knew how to kill a man with merely his hand. His goal now was to maim and humiliate, not to kill.
Eyes narrowing on the new weapon, Zane focused his attention solely on Ty as they started to circle each other. He could feel the nerves cramping in his gut, and he struggled to keep his breathing even and his face blank.
He would not be drawn out. His hardest lesson when learning to fight had been to wait, although his first lesson had been to run. He realized in a sudden moment of clarity as they sized each other up that if he had any sense of self-preservation he would run now, because Ty was obviously way out of his league. But his pride just wouldn’t let him do it. If he buckled under now, Ty would never have an ounce of respect for him. And Zane just couldn’t live with that.
He felt his knives heavy at his wrists as he kept his fists curled. Those knives had been another lesson, one suited to his fighting style once the academy instructors had whipped some muscle onto his tall frame. Zane hoped to God he wouldn’t have to draw one, because it was far too likely that Ty would take it away and use it against him.
With no warning, Ty lunged at him, feinting with the broken glass in his right hand and swiping at Zane with his left. Zane got his arm up to block the swipe of the bottle, using the metal bulk of the knife against his wrist to jar the other man’s hold and send the bottle sailing and crashing into the dumpster. But the left hook caught him in the temple and he went reeling backward, seeing stars even as he grabbed hold of Ty’s wrist and used the other man’s body to hold himself upright.