CHAPTER FOUR
Sloane crowded over Nick, the Silverado bucking down the narrow road before Tierney took the next right, bounced them down a rough dirt two-track. Dust billowed out behind them, stones ticking off the undercarriage as the wind howled past, the first drops of rain splattering against the windshield.
Of all the outcomes, this hadn’t made the list.
Nick’s hand settled over hers, cool but firm. “You don’t have to stare at me like that. I’m not dead yet, sweetheart.”
Sloane’s heart kicked up at the endearment. He hadn’t let it slip since they’d talked in his apartment. The night that seemed to be the start of everything, lately. “Have you seen your leg?”
He shrugged it off. “Too busy looking at you. When your dot stopped moving…”
She squeezed his fingers, grabbing more supplies out of her med kit with her other hand. Despite his reassurances, he looked like shit, the pallor of his skin more pronounced against his mahogany brown hair. And no amount of muscle mass hid the way he looked a breath away from passing out. “You were stationary, first, dumbass. Scared the crap out of me. Pretty sure you’ve never stayed that long in one position before.”
“Moving wasn’t really an option…” he smiled, coughed, “until it was the only one.”
Because he’d been worried about her.
He didn’t say it, but she saw it in the way he looked up at her, a flash of fear reflecting in his eyes. Just like that night in Prague.
“Was that before or after Tierney found you?”
“Before, but I would have made it out one way or another.”
Tierney snorted, slid her focus their way. “Looks like you haven’t really changed, after all, Colter. And no, you wouldn’t have.”
Sloane glanced at Tierney. Ignoring the fact she’d been presumed dead for over a year, she seemed like the woman Sloane remembered from the few joint task forces they’d worked together, though, there was a hollowness to her eyes that hadn’t been there before. A tightness around her mouth that spoke of hard times and unforgiving memories.
Tierney skipped her gaze toward Sloane, mouth lifting a bit at the corners. “Kinda creepy, isn’t it?”
Sloane frowned. “What’s creepy?”
“Seeing someone come back from the dead. Makes you reconsider the way you look at the world.”
Her words hit Sloane hard, the honesty impossible to miss. “I don’t think it’s creepy, just…”
She paused because she didn’t know how to answer.
Tierney shrugged. “That about sums it up.” She grabbed her cell, hit an icon on the screen.
It rang, then picked up. “Did you get the package?”
Buck Landry. At least, that’s who Sloane thought it was.
Tierney scoffed, taking the next bend fast and tight, spitting out more gravel across the shoulder as she drove with a predatory calm that skittered shivers down Sloane’s back — as if Tierney had already made peace with dying. “Did you doubt me?Because we’ll be having a serious conversation about that if you did.”
Buck laughed. “Never. More that Nick can be an ornery son of a bitch. Thought he might balk at letting you save his ass.”
Nick grunted as he helped Sloane drag him over the console and onto the back seat. “I heard that, dumbass.”
“He lives. Though, with the tension I hear in both your voices, I’m sure that’s not guaranteed. Sloane, you there, too?”
Sloane grunted. “You’d feel pretty stupid asking if I wasn’t. And thanks for the save.”
“For better or worse, Nick’s family. That means you are, too. Now are we arranging a pickup or…”
Tierney ran her fingers through her hair as she glanced at Nick, again. “God, I hope so. Bastard’s bleeding all over the seats.”
“Foster just grabbed me from what’s left of the lodge. Dalton and Ward headed back with Bodie so they could question the little shit. We’re only a few minutes out.”
