The Long Game Part 4

 

Bare-chested, dressed in joggers and unlaced boots, Tenny sat on the bottom step, feet on the concrete aisle, coffee in one hand and lit cigarette in the other. He was staring out the open barn doors, at the rain drumming on the driveway and hissing through the leaves of the oak trees: a water color portrait come to life, soft and saturated.

Like Reese, Tenny wasn’t the sort of person who could be snuck up on. The flicker of his fingers before he brought his cig to his lips told Reese that his approach had been heard, though it wasn’t acknowledged. He sat down on the step beside him, concrete cold beneath his naked toes.

After a drag and an exhale, smoke curling up to twine with the steam off the coffee, Tenny’s gaze slid over, down low. His voice was still sleep-rough, the way it got when he hadn’t slept well – a standard condition, these days. “You’re not supposed to be barefoot in a barn.”

“You’re not supposed to smoke in one, either,” Reese countered, mildly.

Tenny took a long drag and then ground the butt beneath his boot. “Yeah. Emmie would ream me out for it.” He leaned down to pick up the butt and pocket it; scraped his toe over the last flakes of tobacco on the ground, smearing away the evidence.

A breeze swept in through the doors, bringing cold raindrops and moist air; when it settled, the rain resumed its steady hiss on the pavement. A quiet moment – but Tenny’s profile, limned in silver, spoke of unquiet things. 

The Wild Charge, Dartmoor Book IX 

Contrary to logic, writing doesn't get any easier over time, because as your experience and skill level increases, so too does your ambition, so that each new project is a fresh challenge, and you never feel like you're "there," at your final stage of development. This is a good thing! It's a natural, self-conscious form of quality control. But it also means that sometimes a project comes along that you dread, at least a little, because it's going to be one of the tricky ones, and you're more worried than excited, because you need it to pull its emotional weight. Because you've set up a scenario in which the emotions are high stakes, and you know you have to deliver. 

In the case of The Wild Charge, I think I did deliver...but it was a hard steer to wrangle the whole way through. 

Reese was first introduced in American Hellhound, Tenny in Prodigal Son, and it had already taken several books and a lot of careful steps to get them to their own book, at which point I needed to be doubly careful to hit all the right emotional notes for each of them individually, and as a couple. Tenny of the hundred false personas, the accents, the faces, the languages, the fakeness. And simple, honest Reese, so much more emotionally mature though he doesn't know it, and Tenny denies it. Together, they each manage to form a complete person. I couldn't begin to imagine either of them paired with anyone else; it felt like fate, like destiny, and so their love story is very satisfying to bring fully to life in TWC. 

Plot-wise, this book has a lot going on. It needed to. Because I'm always writing from a character-driven perspective, I think it's important for the plot to reflect a character's inner journey, and for it to be fitting as well. Though a bit over-the-top, the action of this book is appropriate for a pair of characters brought up to be assassins. A local-yokel, gang vs. gang, Evil Backwoods Boys sort of plot would have been totally anticlimactic for anyone with Reese and Tenny's (and Fox's) skills. The book had to go full spy mode, or risk having their emotional climax fall flat amidst a subpar challenge with minimal external tension. And because I love when characters mirror one another, it was fun to bring in Reese's father. The Dad vs. Dad battle - both physically, in the Beaumont building, with Hunter fighting Devin, and thematically, showcasing two very different ways to be a lousy father - is another thing that Reese and Tenny share, and another way their small differences shore up one another's gaps. 

TWC is one of my absolutely favorite books in the series for a lot of reasons. Mercy's surprise "Bonjour!" moment still makes me grin. And I love the quiet, post-op scene in France, at the very end. This book introduces the audience to Pongo, and Melissa, and Toly, and Prince, and Kat. I said all along it was "wild," and it is, and I'm very proud of it. Of the boys, and of the stunt they pulled off, and of the whole book serves to build on and expand the series further.

It's a must-read before Nothing More - available now! - and, since I wasn't ready to let Reese and Tenny go yet, inspired the "Yuri" moment in Nothing More. IYKYK.