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“Annie?”
“Get Your Gun, you’ve gotta have seen—”
“Danny.”
“Look,” he said, glancing at the weapon in her hand. “I don’t know where you think you’re going with that, but you’re not going by yourself in my truck.”
“Fine,” she said, slapping the keys to his chest. “I’ll hitch a ride.”
She tried to go around him, but he put himself in her way again. “Okay, it’s more than a mile to anything even close to a real road and a car probably goes by once every two or three weeks.” That exaggeration didn’t impress her. “Wecan take the truck.” He hooked an arm around behind her neck to rest on her shoulders. “After we eat something.”
“I’m amped now,” she said. “And I don’t want you to come.”
“Mm hmm,” he said, bending down to sweep her legs out from under her.
“Danny!”
If he thought about taking her to the water while she was holding their only defense, Tess wouldn’t forgive him so fast. He carried her back to the lounge chair and dropped her onto it.
Crouching quickly at her side, he laid an arm across her hips to clamp her in place. “Sometimes you’re a drag, sometimes you’re the most luminous woman I’ve ever known,” he said. The sentiment was enough to silence her objections. Clamping her mouth closed, Tess blinked at him. “You definitely take life way too seriously. But there is no way, in any universe, that I let you walk into that compound without me at your six. You go, I go. That’s the rule, Little Red.”
They didn’t do mushy. Nothing even close to mushy. Especially not while it was light outside. Laying a hand on his cheek, she could read his certainty. Without blinking, he just kept looking at her, showing he wouldn’t budge.
“Danny Winger,” she said, her thumb moving in a slow caress. “You better be careful. If you don’t find a weed source soon, you could find yourself caring about more than sex and beer.”
“Tell me about it,” he said, bouncing up to catch a quick kiss. “Trust me, I’m working on it.”
When he took the gun from her hand, Tess sank against the lounge chair, watching him cross back to the grill.
“For a guy who was desperate to go inside, you’re gun-shy now.”
“Not gun-shy,” he said, tucking the weapon into the back of his jeans. “We’ll go after we eat… Maybe have sex and then we’ll go.”
Shaking her head, Tess didn’t hide her smile. “Yeah,” she said, tipping her head to the side to admire the view of him at the grill. “Just the essentials.”
His fitness was obvious. On top of that, he was carrying a gun. Whoever was inside the mysterious building had plenty of their own to worry about. She and Danny might not be specific, but they weren’t nothing either.
FOOD AND SEX, TWO STAPLES. Both had their boxes checked before they piled into the truck to return to the coordinates.
Tension filled the air. Not the good kind either. She’d dragged Danny into the situation. If only she could find the right words to apologize. Contrition wasn’t enough. Nothing would make up for what might be about to happen.
The trees cleared, giving them a view of the building again.
“I think you should stay outside,” she said.
In the light, it wasn’t as foreboding, although she still didn’t like the look of it.
“Outside where? The door?”
“The whole place,” she said. “Just park here and I’ll walk over—”
“You get to have all the fun?”
“Danny,” she said, frustrated that he still thought it was some big joke. “I don’t know who’s in there or what they want.”
“Which is why you should have backup.”
“We can have a signal. How about if I don’t come outside in an hour, you call the cops?”
