Pack Dynamics by Julie Frost

energy.
    “I have a teleconference with the board on a Saturday? What gives?”
    She looked at him briefly between her fingers. “Well, Mr. Jarrett, you were too hung over for the one on Monday, couldn’t be bothered to attend the one we rescheduled for Wednesday, and said, and I quote, ‘A board meeting on a Friday is a travesty, a travesty, I say.’ So, we scheduled one for today instead.”
    “Ah.” He got off the bed, and then their positions were reversed as he began pushing the chair, with her in it, toward one of the guest rooms.
    “You shouldn’t be up …” she protested weakly.
    “I’m way better. Because I got some sleep .” He wheeled her through a doorway and stopped next to the king-sized bed. Stripping the covers back, he said, “In, Miss Graham.”
    She levered herself out of the chair and onto the oh-so-soft mattress. Curling around the oversized pillow, she nearly whimpered in relief as Alex pulled the comforter over her. “Wake me up in a couple of hours, Mr. Jarrett.”
    She heard him snort as sleep claimed her.
    O O O
    “And she talks about me running myself into the ground,” Alex muttered as he made his way downstairs to find Janni in a state of shellshock.
    “So much for being safe here,” she said, a little bitterly, turning Ben’s bloodstained glasses over and over in her hands. She was curled up on the sofa in the living area by the kitchen. Someone had given her a throw, and she huddled under it, gazing straight ahead at nothing.
    Alex felt inadequate. “Sorry.” He made a wide berth around the blood on the floor, grabbed the coffeemaker, and plugged it into a different socket within easier reach, making a mental note to give the maids the day off and call in an outside cleaning service. His kitchen looked like someone had dumped several good-sized cans of red paint on the tiles and then spattered the walls with it for good measure. He couldn’t believe he’d slept through the incident, gunfire and all.
    Janni shook her head and massaged the space between her eyes as he sat on the couch beside her. “I know you are. I can’t believe Ben did that.”
    “I may have to hire him away from your mom,” Alex said with a twisted grin he didn’t feel.
    “You’re not funny, Alex. At all.”
    “Sorry,” he said again. “What happened? Megan didn’t give me any details.”
    “The second he saw the fake cops come in, Ben lost it. He backed himself up against the counter where we put the sniper rifle.” Janni rested her chin on her bent knees and stared off into space. “You know, Ben looks like a damn baby seal. He’s not that big, and he just has this air of, I don’t know, harmlessness.” She frowned a little. “Something about his eyebrows, maybe, and the glasses help. Anyway, he was an Army Ranger for a stint before I got him the job with my mom.”
    “He was?” Alex was surprised, because Ben hadn’t struck him as the type. Whatever that meant, upon reflection.
    “Yeah, straight out of high school, wanted to do his part. He did two tours in Afghanistan, got captured by insurgents for a while during the second one, and the GI Bill put him through computer school after he came home.” She bared her teeth. “And these people only saw ‘guy we nearly killed to make a point’ rather than ‘combat veteran with PTSD who has a real reason to hate our guts,’ and didn’t even think to move him away from the big scary gun. And he executed them with it, efficiently . Didn’t hesitate, none of that standoff bullshit, didn’t tell them to drop it and back off, just boom, boom, boom. Total soldier mode, ‘servicing targets,’ he’s called it. He doesn’t like it when people point weapons at his friends.”
    “I’m not too fond of the concept myself.” The soothing aroma of coffee filled the room, and Alex grabbed a couple of mugs and a bunch of supplies, sugar and flavored creamers and spoons.
    Janni put a hand up. “None for me. As soon as we know something