Cut and Run 6 - Stars and Stripes

laugh. “Need help?”
    “Kiss my ass, Garrett.”
    The dust wafted up around them when Ty’s feet hit the ground. Even behind the sunglasses, Zane knew Ty was glaring at him. He would have given anything to be able to drag Ty behind a tree.
    Instead, he slid his hand over Ty’s hip and into his back pocket, pulling him closer. He had to take his hat off to steal a kiss.
    Ty smiled against his lips, though when he pulled away, Ty was glaring at him over the top of his sunglasses. “My ass hurts, Garrett.”
    “Didn’t we have this conversation when we first met?”
    “Have we had the ‘I hate you’ conversation lately? I’d like to have that one again. Real soon.”
    “Play nice, boys,” Harrison said as he stopped by to take the reins.
    “We’re not fighting,” Zane said.
    “Yes, we are,” Ty sing-songed.
    “I swear, you two . . .” Harrison pulled the soft cooler off the side of the saddle. “Here you go, son. Don’t want to forget your lunch.”
    “Yeah,” Zane said darkly, eyes on Ty. “Don’t want you swooning from hunger later.”
    “I’ll show you swooning.”
    Harrison took the reins and led the horses away. Zane brushed against Ty’s arm, pausing to whisper, “My ass hurts, too.”
    “Good.”
    Zane popped him in the chest with his knuckles and kept walking, cooler dangling from his hand. At least Ty seemed in decent humor. But then, Zane had noticed that Ty was often in his best moods in the face of adversity, whether physical discomfort or outright danger. He complained, sure, but often in a way that was amusing and managed to keep up the morale of others. No wonder he had thrived on a Recon team.
    As Ty strolled away, the backdrop of the Hill Country offered a glimpse of Afghanistan behind a Marine. Zane’s active imagination could see it, and it brought up questions he’d been spending the last few months trying not to ask.
    Why had Ty left the Marines? He’d admitted to receiving a substantial payoff, but he hadn’t offered to explain and Zane had decided it wasn’t worth the fight to find out then. Every time he’d thought about asking since, he’d found himself thinking of Ty in his dress blues, the hint of melancholy behind his eyes when he wore them, and he let it go.
    There were some sore points you just didn’t poke. Ty stayed away from Zane’s, and Zane gave him the same courtesy. He couldn’t help feeling that Ty’s secrets were darker than Ty let on.
    The other guys had taken up seats on some low rocks under the shade of a copse of trees and started unpacking their lunches, and Ty wandered over to sit between Joe and Cody, making a show of being sore and stiff. Zane knew he was trying to glean more information from the ranch hands, so he let him go alone. They laughed at him as he flopped down.
    He was dusty and growing more and more tanned by the minute, and he wore that hat like he’d been made for it. It was enough to hold Zane’s attention as Jamie, Mark, and Annie sat around him, unpacking their lunches.
    “Hey, Z. He seems like a good guy,” Jamie said.
    Zane chuckled and turned to look at his cousin. “He is. But you haven’t even talked to him; how would you know?”
    Jamie shrugged, glancing at Ty as if he was truly considering the question.
    “What do you know about your partner, Z?” Mark asked after a few moments of silent shuffling with their coolers.
    Something about that question made the hair on the back of Zane’s neck rise. “Excuse me?”
    Mark glanced over his shoulder at Ty and the others, then leaned closer. “What do you know about him?” he asked softly. “Like, do you know anything about his past?”
    Zane was tempted to tell Mark how inappropriate that question was, especially when asked in front of others. But it was so odd for Mark to bring up the issue at all that Zane was curious to find out what he was getting at. “We don’t talk a lot about the past,” he admitted. “Why?”
    “I knew him when he was still in service.” Mark frowned. “Or, I knew about him. He was a big deal where I was. Lots of respect, lots of fear.”
    Zane didn’t doubt that, not one bit. That was true even now. People respected Ty for his abilities, and feared him because of his attitude. Zane knew he was just a big marshmallow under all the gruff sarcasm and badassery, but no one else did.
    “I know he was awarded the Bronze Star and a few Purple Hearts,” Zane said with a hint of pride.
    Mark nodded. “He was an excellent