Better than what he’d done to HRT… The memory made her mouth flood with saliva. Agent Monteith had been a good man by all accounts. Yael wished for the millionth time she could somehow change the past, but it was futile.

A young man came over and stood a little too close as he ordered another round for himself and his shaven-headed friends who were playing pool.

“No,” she said firmly, as he met her gaze and opened his mouth to deliver what was, no doubt, his favorite pickup line.

He shot his friends a despondent look and they all burst out laughing.

“Ma’am.” He nodded as he picked up the beers on a tray and walked away.

She felt a thousand years old.

Her food arrived and she was on her second wing when a new group of people walked in. She recognized some of them from the operation last week even though they were wearing casual clothes today. The Hostage Rescue Team. She was at the end of the bar sitting in the shadows but she saw them catalogue everyone in the place before some of them settled into an empty booth while others ranged along the bar on the opposite side of the room.

Her heart pounded and her appetite faded away.

The Marines might be young, good-looking and in great shape, but the HRT guys exuded an air of rock-solid self-assurance and absolute competence that was compelling. Every one of them looked in peak physical condition. Broad shoulders, lean torsos, powerful legs. And it wasn’t even their physiques that was the most impressive thing about them. It was the way they held themselves with the utmost confidence—the tilt of their jaw, the intelligence in their calm but constantly vigilant eyes, the set of their mouths.

The barkeep placed her beer on the bar and she glanced over her shoulder at Laura. Her date had moved so he sat beside her on the bench seat and they were facing one another, Laura all giggling coyness and animated excitement. The two of them looked absorbed in one another and as if they were getting on wonderfully.

Yael grimaced and took another swallow of beer.

Maybe she was the one with the problem. Actually, she was definitely the one with the problem. She picked at the label on her bottle. At least Shane Livingstone wasn’t with the HRT group. Even as the thought popped into her head, the door opened again and in he walked with a good-looking African American guy she hadn’t seen before. Shane didn’t seem to see her and she put her head down, letting her hair hide her features as she concentrated on her food, hoping to fade into the woodwork.

She hadn’t expected to encounter the guy ever again and had been relieved by that thought. He’d seen her fail on every front—even the thing she was supposed to be exceptional at.