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A low growl pierced her ears. Maverick lunged from the vehicle, fangs bared. He went straight for the bomber’s gun hand and ripped the bastard’s forearm down.
The attacker’s scream was lost to the desert as he tried to regain control of the weapon.
Jocelyn spun. Her fist connected with tissue and bone.
A solid kick landed against Maverick’s ribs, and the shepherd backed off with a whine so heart-wrenching it brought up the memory of walking into Miles’s hospital room to find Maverick waiting for her.
Air was suctioned out of her chest. She cocked her elbow back for a second strike.
But the bomber was faster. He wrapped his hand around hers and twisted down. Then slammed his forehead into her face.
She hit the ground.
BAKERCOULDN’TFORCEhimself to focus on the puzzle pieces in front of him. No matter how long he’d stared at them, he couldn’t find anything to identify their bomber. The son of a bitch had covered his tracks too well. But worse, he couldn’t stop thinking about Jocelyn. About what he’d said to her in those final moments.
“Take a break, Halsey.” Jones slammed a hand into Baker’s back, and the movement nearly catapulted him forward. “You’re going to give yourself an aneurysm. I’ll go through everything again. In the meantime, why don’t you grab something to eat and catch some sleep. You’ve been running on fumes for days.”
“I’m fine.” Baker pinched the bridge of his nose. Truth was, he wasn’t fine. He hadn’t been for a long time, but having Jocelyn around had helped. Her enthusiasm had been annoying as hell in the beginning. Now he found himself missing it. Her sarcasm had broken through that need to push everyone away. She’d brought out a playful side to him he’d convinced himself had died that day with his sister and given him a sense of adventure. They hadn’t just been two people working a case together. They’d been partners. In and out of the field.
And now... Now he felt like he was floating in a thousand different directions without an anchor. Shit. He’d had no right to throw her past in her face like that. She’d lost her husband, the one person she’d counted on being there for her for years. She’d done what she could to survive. Just as he had by making the cartel his personal mission. Two different paths leading to the same place.
He owed her an apology. Hell, he owed her a dozen apologies a day over the next ten years for the way he’d acted. Because despite what he’d said and how he felt about the sickness clawing through Alpine Valley at the cartel’s influence, Baker had fallen in love with a mercenary.
“Yeah. You look fine to me.” Jones unpocketed a set of keys and tossed them to Baker. “Take my truck. It has a Socorro Security garage pass in the center console. But if anyone asks, you stole it off me. I got you covered.”
“Thanks.” He let the keys needle into his palm as he headed for the tent’s flap but slowed his escape. “What Jocelyn said earlier about her addiction... I don’t want this to come back on her—”
“I already knew.” Jones turned back to the blueprints, hands leveraged at his hips. A thick scar ran the length of the combat operator’s skull and down beneath his T-shirt. “That’s the thing about being part of and living with a team as highly trained as ours twenty-four-seven. You tend to pick up on things. There’s nothing we can hide from each other. No matter how hard we try.” He released a breath. “That’s why I know she’s been a lot happier since you started coming around. Her hands aren’t permanently stuck in a bowl of dough. She’s smiling more. Nothing seems forced like it usually does. I just figured she’d tell us when she was ready. Seems she trusts you, though.”
“She did.” Baker fisted his hands around the keys.
“She still does. You just have to give her a reason.” Jones notched his chin higher, accentuating years of disciplined muscle along his neck and shoulders. “But, Chief, if I hear you throw her past in her face like that again, it won’t just be some petty bomber coming for you. Understand? You attack one of us, you attack all of us.”
Baker didn’t have the voice to answer. He nodded instead and slipped out of the tent. Every nerve ending focused on putting one foot in front of the other. The case, the bomber, the impending war with the cartel—none of it mattered right then. There was only Jocelyn.
“Chief!” Heavy breathing preceded his second-in-command hiking up the slight incline to the plateau of mud, rock and cement. The deputy hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “We just got word of a car fire outside town limits. You can see the smoke from here.”
Car fire? Dread pooled at the base of his spine as he caught sight of a thick plume of black smoke directly west. “How long ago?”
“No more than five minutes,” the deputy said.
“Anyone injured?” Baker jogged down the slope and hit the unlock button on Jones’s keys. Headlights flashed from an oversized black pickup at the end of the street. Ready in case of escape.
“West went to check it out, but his patrol car is missing.” The deputy tried to keep up with him.
Disbelief surged high. “He lost his patrol car?”
“No, sir. We believe it was stolen.” A hint of embarrassment pecked at the man’s neck and face.
Baker’s instincts honed in on that cloud of smoke. The base looked as though it was coming from the road cutting between Alpine Valley and Socorro. Which meant... His gut wrenched hard. “Jocelyn.”
His entire being shot into battle-ready defense. He raced for Jones’s truck. “Get West and round up the Socorro operatives to meet me out there! Now!”
He didn’t wait for confirmation. Hauling himself behind the steering wheel, he hit the Engine Start button and threw the truck into gear. Frightened and shocked residents gathered together in groups of two and three as more and more noticed the desert fire. He raced through town as fast as he dared, but the need to get to her as fast as possible had him hugging the accelerator. “I’m coming, Joce. I’m coming.”
Trees thinned, exposing the mile-high cliffs on either side of town. Once considered protection, Baker could only look at them now as a threat considering one of them had come crashing down and buried part of his town. But Alpine Valley was resilient. It had to be to survive this long. And though he’d taken up the mantle to protect the people here, he wasn’t alone. “Just hang on.”
The truck’s back tires fishtailed as asphalt gave way to dirt at the border of town. He glanced in the direction of his property, taking in the jagged structure left behind by the bomb and resulting fire, but dragged his attention back to the road. The bed and breakfast, his sister’s death, revenge—none of it was strong enough to distract him now. They were in the past. Long gone, and as much as he wanted to hold on to the pain—to get justice for Linley—he had a future to fight for.
