Slade’s jaw muscles flexed with the clenching of his teeth. If he wasn’t so damn happy Bones and Falcon came away from the blast with little more than a few scratches, he’d be tempted to shoot the comedic medic, himself.
“You’re right.” He ignored his teammate’s comments, focusing solely on Shadow. “I don’t give a shit about satisfaction scores, and I don’t care if my tone offends you. It’s my job toprotectyou, and that’s what I’m trying to do. But you?—”
“What? Almost ruined your perfect record?” she seethed, the blues of her eyes darkening with anger and some other emotion he couldn’t quite decipher.
“My what?”
“You know…therecord.”
Slade blinked when she failed to offer anything more. “You keep saying that as if I know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“She’s talking about the fact that, to date, no one on Tac-Ops has ever lost a client we’ve been hired to protect.” Bones took it upon himself to explain. To Shadow, the other man added, “But technically, you didn’t hire us either, so…I’m thinking this may not actually count toward the record.”
That’swhat she thought he was upset about?
Slade grew silent, letting his arms drop down to his sides as he took a step back to give her some room. “We should go.” His tone sounded flatter than normal, even to his own ears. “If you’re still hell bent on leaving, we need to get you to the office. You can see your dad, and then I’ll take you someplace safe.”
“Do you know where?”
“Not yet, but we have to assume the cabin’s been burned, and your father agrees. He already has a clean-up crew headed out there to grab our things and erase any evidence we were ever there.”
A look of sadness flashed before she blinked it away. As for Slade, he was fine never going back. He’d never admit it, of course, but every time he’d step foot in the cabin’s entrance or inadvertently caught a glimpse of her bed through her room’s opened door, he’d remember.
The kissing. The touching. That brief moment in time when he’d lost himself in her arms.
It was both Heaven and Hell being there with her and not giving in to his deepest desires. So while he hated the reason, Slade couldn’t help but think a change of scenery would do them both some good.
With any luck, it would help remind him that this was nothing more than another job. That Shadow was no different than any other woman he and his teammates had been assigned to protect in the past.
Yeah, you tell yourself that bullshit enough times, Garrison, and you might actually start to believe it.
Probably not, but you couldn’t blame a guy for trying.
The nurse from before returned with discharge papers in hand, and a few short minutes later, they were walking out the door.
“Owens sent over another car, since yours and the one we were driving both got destroyed in the blast,” Falcon informed the group as a whole. “There should also be a couple of uniformed officers waiting to escort us to the office, just in case.”
Sure enough, as they stepped outside, Slade saw one of Tac-Ops’ blacked-out SUV’s ready and waiting. Just as Falcon had claimed, there was also a marked Charlotte PD cruiser parked in front, as well as another one waiting to follow their replacement SUV from behind.
“It never ceases to amaze me how much pull my father actually has,” Shadow muttered as a man Slade recognized as one of Owens’ trusted drivers opened the back passenger door.
The guy stood silently off to the side and waited as she carefully climbed inside.
Slade followed suit, sliding himself onto the bench seat next to where she sat. Falcon took the front while Bones went around to the other side. With Shadow sandwiched between him and Bones, Slade gave their driver a nod, letting him know they were ready to roll.
They rode back to the office in silence, Slade and the others each lost in their own thoughts. Though he tried like hell not to let himself go there, his mind kept replaying the terrifying scene over and over again in his head.
Like Shadow, he’d been pissed as hell for having fallen for what they now knew was a trap meant to end both their lives. Then he’d pushed that damn button, sending them all flying in different directions.
He could still see her lying in the grass, bleeding and far too still. Slade had gone crazy, then, nearly falling back down to his ass as he’d scrambled his way over to her. He’d never felt such an overwhelming sense of relief as he had when she’d opened those gorgeous blue eyes.
I could have killed her.
A few more seconds, and that’s exactly what would have happened. And that knowledge—and the images that came with it—was something that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
“Hey, Dig.” Bones’ voice cut through his torturous thoughts, pulling him back into the present. “We’re here.”
Slade blinked and looked out his window to find they were already stopped inside their building’s secured garage. The underground space was kept safe by an armed guard posted by its gate, and the elevator a few yards from where they sat would take them straight up to the building’s top floor.
