1
A shadow loomed over her, blocking out the heat blast of the early morning sun striking across Fort Bragg, North Carolina’s Range 37 training area. No question who it was—he blocked out everything good about the quiet morning. Even the chatty cuckoos and the dive-bomber buzz of passing hummingbirds seemed to go silent in his presence.
“Staff Sergeant Cindy Sue Chavez.”
“Yes, Master Sergeant JD Ramírez?” Could the man be a more formal pain in the ass? She hated being called Cindy Sue and he damn well knew it, but it wasn’t a good idea to talk back to a superior rank—not even when he was being a superior asshole.
Her mother, coming from Guadalajara, had thought Cindy Sue sounded American. But Cindy was Bangor, Maine born-and-buttered and no one in Bangor was named Cindy Sue because it
