Running a hand over his jaw, Slade used it to hide the way his teeth were clenching tightly together. Dammit, the last thing he wanted to do was upset her. He sure as shit didn’t want her thinking he blamed her for letting a killer get away.
“Yeah, I don’t know.” Bones frowned, his knowing eyes searching Slade’s a little too closely. “I mean, I get that we’ve only recently met her in person, but we’ve known that woman a good, long while.” The man’s southern drawl grew thicker with every new word. “She’s gotten us through some pretty hairy situations, and never once have I ever heard her jump that quick to anger.”
When his gaze narrowed with a hint of suspicion, Slade’s defenses immediately rose.
“What the hell are you looking at me for?” He shot his teammate a deep scowl.
But Bones simply lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug.
“You tell me,” the other man instructed. “You’re the one who’s been locked away with her the last few days. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but there seemed to be a healthy dose of tension in the air between you two. I don’t suppose anything has…happened with you guys. Has it?”
“What did you just ask me?”
Keep your cool, Garrison. Keep your fucking cool.
“Easy, Dig.” Bones lifted a defensive palm. “There’s no judgment here. Good lookin’ guy like yourself trapped here with a beautiful, funny, intelligent woman like Shadow…” He let his words trail. “Lord knows it wouldn’t be the first time a member of Tac-Ops mixed business with pleasure.”
“There’s nothing going on between me and Shadow,” he vowed. Technically, it was true despite how much he wished it wasn’t.
“So you two haven’t?—”
“No.” Slade’s throat worked a swallow. “We haven’t. Not that it would be any of your fucking business if we had.”
Falcon chose that moment to jump back into the conversation. “I think what our well-meaning friend is trying to say is that if this…arrangement isn’t working, one of us can spot you and stay with Shadow instead.”
Like hell, you will.
I don’t need a fucking spotter.” He made that point crystal clear. Turning his full attention back to Bones, Slade added, “And whatever you’re thinking about me and her…don’t. I’m here to do a job and nothing else. Got it?”
Bones waited a beat before raising both of his hands as a show of defeat. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
“Okay, then.”
The silence that followed was rigid at best, but a few seconds later, Falcon quickly—and thankfully—changed the subject.
“Owens said to tell you he spoke with his most trusted contact within the CIA. Apparently that guy’s getting Owens everything he can find on Stanton’s time with the Agency.”
Slade huffed out a breath. “That’s all well and good, but I don’t see how a bunch of redacted case files and reports are going to help us with?—”
“We have to go!” Shadow’s frantic voice sounded from the top of the stairs.
All three men swung their gazes her way, and when Slade saw the look on her face, his stomach filled with a strong sense of dread.
“What is it?” Slade shot to his feet, his chair nearly toppling over backward in the process.
He rushed her way as she ran down the stairs, Bones and Falcon falling right in line behind him.
“Ashley just called.” She referred to their office manager as a well of unshed tears covered the blues of her eyes. “She said my dad’s in the emergency room at Atrium Health Mercy. She said…she said he collapsed during a meeting with a client.”
That dread he’d been feeling churned into full-blown concern
“Rafe?” Bones came to his side. “What the hell happened?”
“Ashley said the paramedics think it’s a heart attack. She said they had to…” Her voice cracked preventing the rest of what she was going to say from coming out.
“Had to what?” he asked as he and the others followed her to the cabin’s front door.
