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“He didn’t look—”
“No!” Her eyes filled. “Abe is a good man and…” She swallowed. “I need to get back to my life.”
He cocked his head at her. “Iris.”
“Fine. Then I need to get to Barcelona.” She met his gaze. “I need to go to Barcelona.”
A beat.
“You do meanweneed to go to Barcelona, don’t you?”
“Hud. Look at you. You’re exhausted. And hurt. And hungry and…I got you into this.”
“Oh goody, we get to have this argument again.”
“You can’t keep protecting me.”
“Really?”
“I mean…you shouldn’t.” She sighed.
He stepped up to her. “There’s a lot of things I shouldn’t do.”
She pressed a hand to his chest—maybe to stop him, maybe to hold him back. And it sort of slowed him down because, yeah, after five days on the run with her, and the last twenty-four hours, he suddenly had things in his head that probably wouldn’t work once their life righted itself.
So, Hud, no more brilliant ideas that could get them in trouble.
Instead, he touched his forehead to hers. “Let’s call a truce on the blame, okay? You may call the shots on the field, but I made promises.”
She blew out a breath, gave him a wry smile. “I just hope those promises don’t get you killed.”
Right back atcha, baby.
Two
The boys weren’t telling her something, and it wasn’t that they’d finished off the lasagna.
Jenny Marshall stood in the bath of light from the open door of the refrigerator and pulled out the empty glass 9x13 pan. A layer of crust remained around the edges, the rest of the container empty save the litter of cheese and tomato sauce.
They’d probably scarfed it down early this morning on their way to the Minneapolis airport at oh-dark-hundred—as Fraser or Ned, her military sons, would say.
She put the container in the big farmhouse sink, then glanced at her watch. Oops—yesterdayon their way out of town. They would have already landed in Paris, probably—she thought Ned had mentioned their flight routing through Charles de Gaulle International Airport.
Please, Lord, let them find Iris.
Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll find her.Ned’s voice last night as she’d stood at the door, watching Ned and Jonas pile into the truck. Not boys anymore. Even Ned was a grown man—dark hair, steely eyes, a Navy SEAL with a look about him that suggested business. So much like his oldest brother, Fraser.
Ned had a firm grip on his fiancée Shae, too, whom he wasn’t letting out of his sight. She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened between them, but no one had had time for Ned’s story after Jenny mentioned she hadn’t heard from Iris.
She’d simplymentionedit, and suddenly Fraser had disappeared, then returned with a decree that they—the precisetheyto be determined—were going overseas to find her.
What?
Jonas had even returned from Montana where he’d been visiting his girlfriend—Jenny hadn’t seen that one coming—and decided to go with them.
And at the head of the pack was her husband, Garrett. Not that anyone was overreacting, but the fact that he had decided to helm the trip—or maybe tag along with his sons?—to track down his only daughter felt a little like everyone might be overreacting.
Way overreacting. Hello, the woman traveled constantly.
