“I don’t know,” Carter said, “must’ve beenMcKay.”
“Remind me to have a word with McKay. He isn’t good enough to take that kind of risk yet.” In fact, McKay wasn’t even asniper.
“Whatever you need to do, brother.” Carter lowered his hands. “We’re just gonna tie up these agents out here until we figure out who the hell they really do workfor.”
“Good. I want to talk to them, later.” Because right now he needed to attend to the woman in hisarms.
Tomi was shaking so hard it nearly made his own teeth chatter inresponse.
“It’s okay baby, the situation is under controlnow.”
“When I saw him with a gun at your head, I panicked. I’m sorry,” shestuttered.
“Shhhh, It’s okay. Everything’s okay now. You’resafe.”
“But you weren’t. You were almostkilled!”
“But I wasn’t,” Cole said with confidence, leaning back to tip her chin up so we could look into her eyes. “Stahl is dead, we are all safe. I told you, you didn’t have anything to worryabout.”
Tomi shuddered and ducked against his chest. Cole cupped the back of her head and held her there, savoring her sweet soft body pressed against his. “But we’re going to talk about you disobeying me. I swear you just took ten years off of mylife.”
She leaned back and gave him a wavering smile. “You took ten years off of mine, too. I’d say we’reeven.”
Cole couldn’t resist the temptation. He leaned down and kissed her. “Not even close, baby girl. Not evenclose.”
“Well, well, what do we havehere?”
Cole looked up in shock to see his older brother, Case, casually leaning against the frontdoor.
"Where did you come from?" Last he heard, Case wasunreachable.
His older brother shrugged, which with his massive chest, was like a giant shifting of muscle. "Heard my Tomi was introuble."
Tomi chose that moment to lift her head. She let out a small cry and rushed from Cole's arms, straight into Case’s. His older brother opened up wide, encasing her in a huge bear hug. Those two had always been close. Too close for Cole'sliking.
Case leaned down. “I see you're still getting intotrouble."
"Just alittle."
"Good thing I was around to save your ass," Case stared at Cole over hershoulder.
Cole shifted his weight onto his right foot and glared. "I had the situation perfectly undercontrol."
"Sure looked that way from my vantagepoint."
"So you took out Stahl." It wasn't a question. Case was the best sniper he'd everseen.
Again, his older brother shrugged, keeping an arm firmly planted around Tomi’s shoulders. With her petite frame, her blonde head barely reached the center of his chest. "Should've called mesooner."
"I thought you were out on one of your hikes," Cole said, letting his brother hear the sarcasm in his voice. When Case went off on his own, he did not like to bebothered.
"I was, but this was a mission worth coming home for.” Cole watched as Case lifted Tomi off the ground and she squealed withdelight.
Then his big brother set her back down on her feet, turned her around and nudged her back in the direction of Cole. “Go take care of my little brother before he has a hissyfit.”
Tomi rushed to Cole and he willingly took her into his arms, all the while glaring at Case. "Next time, stay on yourhike."
Case slapped a hand over his chest and pretended to be in pain. “I’m hurt,brother.”
