“It’s a good look on you…Smurfy.”

“I swear to God, if you guys start calling me that, heads are gonna roll—”

Kenny strolled past Griffin, bags in each hand. “What’s that, Smurfy? You think you can take me and the boys?”

Trading insults, Leo and Kenny strode up the ramp and disappeared into the belly of the cargo plane.

Jojo and Sam paused for a moment beside Griffin, and Jojo murmured, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll get our man.”

“We always do,” Griffin replied bleakly. “You got all the gear and intel you need?”

“Yuppers. We’ll bag the tango and be back here to give the minnows hell before Christmas.”

“You do that. And keep an eye on Lipinski. Janine will kill us all if something happens to him.”

Jojo shook his head. “There’s a reason I never put a move on her. That woman’s scary as hell when she’s pissed off.”

Sam grinned. “Smurfy’s welcome to her, man.”

“Be careful, kid,” Griffin tossed at Sam.

The team’s baby member told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with himself while they were gone, and Griffin was still smiling as Sam and Jojo disappeared inside the C-130, too.

In a matter of seconds, the plane was buttoned up and taxiing away, sending a wash of hot engine exhaust at him.

Griffin turned his back to the force of the blast and let it blow him over to the Jeeps. He climbed into the one Sherri was driving.

Jet engines screamed to full power, turbo props cut into the air with a deep, rhythmic thrumming that went right through him, and the red and white lights of the military transport lifted away into the night.

That was it. His teammates were gone, and he was stuck here. Left out of the most important mission of his whole freaking career.

They sat at the end of the runway, watching until the plane became just another speck among the stars. Silence fell around them as Kettering’s Jeep headed back to the compound, leaving him and Sherri alone.

Gradually, the crickets and frogs resumed their nightly chorus, but subdued at this time of year. Or maybe they sensed how colossally, royally pissed off he was at being here to hear them.

Sherri murmured, “I’m sorry. I know how much that meant to you.”

He whirled to face her, enraged. “No. You fucking don’t know. You have no possible way of knowing.”

Sherri looked stricken. Which was weird, considering all of the insulting, degrading, awful things he’d hurled at her the past few weeks. Of course, the difference was none of that had been personal. And this was.

She knew it, and he knew it.

He sighed hard. “I’m sorry. That was out of line.”

“Apology accepted.”