At His Command Read Online Free

will be in charge.”
    “We need to get on a plane as soon as possible, sir,” Chris said.
    The captain picked up the phone. “That’s taken care of. I suggest you get yourselves ready to go. I want daily reports.”
    “Captain, may I have a word with you? In private?” She glanced over at Chris and he smiled wryly. The protesting tone of her voice made her wince inside. She regretted her blunder immediately.
    Captain Snyder sighed. “You’re dismissed, Special Agent Vargas.”
    Chris gave her a sidelong look, but said nothing as he turned and left the office.
    When the door was fully closed, Captain Snyder said, “Problem, Commander?”
    “I have a history with Special Agent Vargas. It’s complicated.”
    “Uncomplicate it and get the job done. Personal problems don’t interest me. Results do. Although you are forcing me to rethink my decision to send you back to the McCloud .”
    “I can handle this assignment,” she said quickly, immediately concerned the tenuous connection between Walker and her brother could snap if she wasn’t given an opportunity to continue the investigation. “I don’t need an NCIS agent breathing down my neck, dredging up old memories.” Damn, she hadn’t meant to say that. “I’m fully capable.”
    His eyes cooled. “I know you are capable. But protocol requires it and I’m not going to take a misstep here with the senator’s son. You are still under investigation yourself.”
    “It’s a routine investigation.” She added “sir” when his eyes went glacial.
    “I’m sure you wouldn’t want this mishap to mar your record. This is going to be media fodder. I want it put to bed quickly.”
    Sia clenched her teeth. “Aye, sir.”
    Exiting the Captain’s office, Sia looked for Chris and found him a few feet away. She walked up to him, grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him into an empty conference room. “You could have given me some kind of warning.”
    “I didn’t know you were stationed here. Not until I walked into the Captain’s office.”
    She didn’t deserve this twist of fate. Of all the places he could have ended up, it had to be Norfolk. “I don’t think it’s a good idea we work together.”
    He shrugged. “It’s easy. Work with me or Captain Snyder will assign someone else. Sounds like an easy choice to me.”
    Sia stared at Chris for several seconds, caught completely off guard again by his presence. After that debacle at her brother’s grave site, she hadn’t expected to see him ever again. Therefore, she’d had no chance to prepare herself to speak to him after what had happened six years ago. She had strategies filed away in her brain for every kind of courtroom situation, but she had no strategies for dealing with Chris and their short-lived, mind-blowing relationship.
    “I don’t want to work with you. You know perfectly well why.” She wanted—no, needed—him to go away. She desperately needed to sort out her thoughts, and she couldn’t do that with him standing less than five feet away, pinning her with that intent gaze of his. Maybe it was better not to confront him so directly. After all, it had been a while since she’d seen him. “Listen,” she went on, trying to sound conciliatory, “I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, really, I don’t. It’s just…it’s been a very long day, and I’m not really prepared to deal with this or you at the moment.”
    Given her continued, rather visceral reaction to him, even after all these years, perhaps she’d never be ready to deal with him.
    “I’m sure it has been a long day. And, yes, I know perfectly well why. Doesn’t change a damn thing. Still your choice.”
    “I can’t walk away from this. I want you to.”
    He shook his head, his gaze resolute. “Not going to happen. I don’t answer to you or Captain Snyder, and I sure as hell don’t answer to the Navy anymore. This is about Lieutenant Eli Washington.”
    “Don’t lecture me. I know what it’s about.”
    His