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Boone is opening cabinets and swinging the fridge door open. “Did you bring, or stop for, any rations and supplies?” He’s back in front of me with an even more pissed-off face. I’m beginning to think he may need this coffee more than I do.
“I guess the point is moot. You probably brought enough food to last a month,” I bite out with a hiss when Austin dabs disinfectant on a deep scrape.
Austin presses a kiss to my leg. “Sorry, baby.”
One simple word and a little warmth in those eyes and my heart betrays me.
Boone’s back in front of me with arms crossed over the large expanse of his chest, and he just eyes the half-empty mug. “Suit yourself.” I use his haughtiness to suppress the mixed feelings Austin is stirring inside me.
“That’s beside the point, Honor. You didn’t even know we were coming.”
He sounds as sarcastic as I feel. He takes in the cabin’s less than polished interior with its thin, white drapes and slightly used furniture.
“I only had one thought, Boone. Get safe and out of sight where no one would recognize me. Isn’t that what you taught me?”
“Well, you managed that in spades. We almost got lost three times trying to find you.”
Austin winks at me. He never did like to see me stressed and Boone has a way of cranking up my levels just by looking at me.
I watch Boone unfasten the harness from his shoulder and lay out his guns on top of the table. I’m fascinated with the way his muscles bunch and ripple under the T-shirt he has neatly tucked into black jeans. “Why didn’t you call us direct?” he asks, turning toward me.
My eyes go wide. “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t have even called my father if I’d known he’d pull you in.” That’s a lie. I’d wished I had their number, but the fact is I didn’t trust myself fromnotcalling them and begging them to come back before tonight. So despite having ample opportunity to find them and their new contact info, I stayed away from temptation on purpose. But they don’t need to know everything. “Why would I call someone, anyone, who has made it obvious they don’t want to be around me?”
On the flip side of that coin, I didn’t have anyone else to call. I’d refused any other protection detail my father tried to push on me. Now looking back that might not have been the wisest.
I have to wonder what kind of idiot that makes me. Almost a dead one, that’s for sure.
“What do you know about the owners?” Landry rejoins us and flanks me on the other side, completing the circle of gorgeous muscle surrounding me in this sort of cocoon.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Admittedly, not much. I only know that they are former Marines and in a relationship with a sweet woman. Mercy, if I recall right.” I let that hang in the air for a moment before saying, “I knew I could come here and not lead trouble to my father’s house while I figured out a game plan. Honestly, when you have a lunatic chasing you through the streets of New York with a gun and screaming, ‘come here, you little bitch, I’m going to kill you,’ one doesn’t stop and analyze all the options. Or at least I don’t. I’m not wired like you three. As soon as I lost him through a couple of back alleyways, I doubled back for my car and didn’t stop driving until I arrived here. Last summer this cabin was my sanctuary for a friend and me and it is once again.”
“And the town?”
I shrug, pulling my thoughts back in from the path they wanted to stumble down of taboo relationships.
“The town is small, close-knit. The kind you see on TV.”
“You mean creepy as fuck.”
I shift in the chair and face Austin with my brows drawn together in question.
“What? Small country towns like this don’t scream Stephen King and funky cemeteries to you? I swear to God if I see a guy with a shovel and some scruffy animal we’re all outta here.”
I give a humorless laugh. He was trying to lighten the mood, but I didn’t much feel like laughing. “No, Austin. Only to you and well, my friend, come to think about it. We spent the whole of last summer binging on Johnny Walker and plotting out thriller stories. Not sure how I got wrapped up with a fiction writer out in the middle of nowhere, but I don’t think I slept all that much last summer.”
Alice was back this summer for a little birthday celebration and round two since our last self-prescribed vacation panned out so well. Only we were going to do it big city style complete with tours for setting options this year.
Landry’s eyebrows are jutting higher than the Illinois arch. He thinks I mean a man.
I don’t make a move to correct him, or the other men for that matter, who are trying their hardest to pin me to the floor with narrowed eyes. Like they have some claim to me. HA! What I do with my life is none of their concern.
Landry leans an arm on the cold, bare mantel and scratches at his jaw, eyes pinned on the floor. His hair is longer on top than I remember. Shaved close to the scalp on the sides with the top half pulled back in a tight, sleek ponytail. Not many men can pull off the look, but he makes it look sexy paired with a thick, well-trimmed beard. The laugh lines around his eyes are a smidge more noticeable as are Austin’s. The one man I never could see growing up. He loved to laugh and live life, but he also took his job seriously from what I can remember.
Boone, on the other hand, took life way too seriously and nothing has changed in that department from what I can tell. His lips are set into a firm line. I trace it with my gaze and follow the path up his angular jawline to find his hair longer. Long enough to bury my hands in. What would it feel like to rake my fingers through the silky-looking strands again? Soft, I imagine. Probably the softest part on the man.
As they talk among themselves, I take my time studying them closer. All have on T-shirts stretched to the max over taut biceps and dark, tanned skin as if they just returned from vacationing in the Bahamas.
Maybe I’m the one that should feel jealous.
