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Blackfish glanced at the other men. "Then y'all better head home."
The driver didn't say anything. He just turned the key in the ignition and started the car's motor purring.
"Don't forget your man down the block," Isaac called out. "We wouldn't want you boys littering up the great state of Texas."
"Littering is definitely a crime," Blackfish agreed. "I'd hate to have a reason to take a look-see at the inside of your vehicle."
Fane's man slowly rolled the car forward, stopped halfway down the block, and pulled over. Beard Man retrieved a groggy but now-conscious Red Shirt and poured him into the car. Then he got in behind him. There wasn't any burning rubber after that, but they weren't taking their time either.
Isaac watched the taillights until they disappeared around a corner. "Thanks Clay. I owe you."
"Your tab is high, but Lash called this one in." Blackfish chewed the end of one of the red coffee stirrer straws he always seemed to have on hand. "I don't know when, but y'all are going to have a huge favor to return someday."
Tamara stiffened beside him. It didn't take a Mensa-level genius to know that she was about as thrilled to owe someone a favor as a struggling surfer was to seeing a passel of sharks headed circling his board.
"We're good for it." Isaac slid his palm across the small of her back, relishing how the tension in her muscles abated even if only a few degrees.
"Better be." Blackfish rolled up the window and drove off down the street.
Isaac turned to Tamara, knowing she wasn't going to want to hear what was about to come next, but the time for keeping the rest of the B-Squad out of this was way past.
She held up her hand and began walking toward her car parked inside the garage. "I'll talk to everyone upstairs first thing in the morning, but tonight I need to go home and get my stuff together."
"You cannot be thinking of going home. Fane's guys could be lurking outside, just waiting for you."
The brake lights on her Camry blinked red and then the trunk popped open. She pocketed the key fob and grabbed another go-bag out of the trunk. "Which is why you're taking me there and staying the night. I have a second car in storage. I'll need a ride in the morning after I say my goodbyes."
The woman was as stubborn as the day was long and as wrong as tits on a boy dog. "You're still determined to leave?"
"I don't have another choice. If Jarrod gets me, he'll do whatever it takes to get Essie's location. Anything. I can't stay here. I need to disappear. It's the only way."
"It doesn't have to be. You have friends upstairs. You don't have to do it alone."
She snorted. "Says the permanent freelancer who won't join the team no matter how many times Taz or Bianca ask?"
Bam. Direct hit. But there wasn't a damn thing the team could do to help him. Some ghosts were impossible to banish.
"Takes one to know one I guess." He swiped the bag from her grasp. "Come on, I'll take you to my place. They won't look for you there."
Tamara didn't even take a single step forward. The bull-headed woman just crossed her arms and got that ready-to-do-battle look in her blue eyes. "There are things at the house that I need."
Something inside him snapped, not at her determination to steer her own ship, but at her refusal to admit even a little that she wasn't one-hundred percent in control.
"What you need to get your head on straight and you can't do that if you're tweaking out on a fading adrenaline rush." He bit out each word. "This isn't a baton twirling concussion. This isn't a desperate attempt to extort money from your ex. This is your niece's life...and yours, damn it, so stop acting like you're the last woman on earth and accept someone's help for once."
The tip of her nose went from pale to raspberry and she gulped. Then he spotted the teary glimmer in her eye. All of the frustration rushing in his veins disappeared in an instant.
Nice going asshole. You're gonna make her cry.
But she didn't. One deep breath and a few inches added to the tilt of her chin, and the ice queen was back—a little thawed but still plenty frosty. Forget giving an inch, the woman wouldn't give a millimeter unless it was pried from her iron grip.
"Wicker and floral prints?" she asked with a snotty sniff.
He won the fight to keep the grin off his face. "There's even a talking fish on the wall."
"You make that thing go off and I'll stab you in your sleep." She strutted past him, stopping at the passenger side of his truck and waited even though they both knew the door was unlocked.
"Just the words every man wants to hear when he's taking a sexy woman home." He strolled over to her side, opened her door, and helped her up into the truck. "Let's go, darlin."
