At the Quietest Word

Chapter 1-2

Michelle totally heard his silent voice message. Just to tease him, she kept her smile on her face and didn’t respond as Ricardo sat down across the picnic table from her.

But he didn’t react or even glance at her as he usually did when they were speaking into each other’s heads with their telepathy. Instead he focused on his meal.

And it had felt different.

Not tone exactly but…different.

An internal thought? One not meant for her?

Did that explain the “Should buy her a vest like that, dude”? Was she herself the “her” in that thought? It was difficult to imagine Ricardo giving her anything other than the hard edge of his tongue on the few occasions when he did speak.

Did this mean that he could hear her own internal thoughts if she didn’t consciously direct them at him?

That’s a majorly cute ass, Manella. Which was true of all of him actually. He was fantastically fit.

No response.

So, she could hear him, sometimes, but he couldn’t hear her unless she directly thought at him.

That meant that inside his head he’d called her a “Total pain in the ass. Yep. Dead on.”

“You’re a real asshole, Manella.”

Everyone around the table turned to look at her. She shouldn’t have said it aloud, even if it was true.

He simply looked at her with those beautiful dark eyes of his that also told her nothing of what he was feeling, even when she could hear him thinking.

His shrug came with no explanatory internal dialogue. It was as if he agreed with her.

“Glad to see your team is shaping up well,” Gibson picked up a hamburger with all the trimmings as if they were all one big happy family. He’d said it so deadpan that there was no way to tell if it was sarcasm or not.

Isobel, who would know through her empathy, simply smiled as she cut a slice off a grilled chicken breast. “Yes, I’m pleased.”

“Your team’s rescue of Ambassador Delaney has received praise at the very highest levels.”

“Which would be yours, except you said you’re quitting. What’s up with that, Colonel?” Ricardo glanced down the table at Hannah Tucker.

:What’s up with the look?: Michelle sent to him.

:I’ve been out of Delta most of a year. Hannah just left a couple days ago; thought she might know.:

:You were still in while in hospital and rehab.:

:Thanks for the reminder I didn’t need.:

He’d finished the last of it just a few months ago—a full year after his rescue. Only after the docs had declared him healed to the best of their ability had he been medically retired. Isobel had told her how hard it had been for Ricardo to leave The Unit, not that he’d ever admit it.

:Either way, I’ve been out. Hannah left Delta less than forty-eight hours ago to join Shadow Force: Psi, so maybe she would know…:

Michelle spotted Hannah’s infinitesimal shake of her head.

:What’s the problem, Ricardo?:

His shrug was no bigger than Hannah’s head shake. :Man’s an institution.:

:And he’s retiring. People do that, you know.:

Still, Ricardo looked freaked, so she turned to take the bull by the horns.

“What are you going to do after you retire, sir?”

Colonel Gibson’s smile was slow, but it made her think that his wife was a lucky woman if she got to see that smile. “I was hoping you’d ask.”

Michelle wondered if that was a good thing, but then she overheard Ricardo’s internal dialogue: Oh s**t!

She didn’t need to see Ricardo’s sun-dark skin paling to know the emotion behind that thought.