“It won’t.” His friend sounded far more confident than Van felt. “I’ve been talking to Webb, remember? I may not have been able to convince him to keep his ass in D.C., but I do think he might be starting to come around where Kam’s concerned.”
A low grunt was the only response he could muster. Silence stretched between the two men until Logan broke it by speaking up again.
“I have to ask, brother…” His teammate paused. “There something going on between you two? ’Cause you sound less like a guy keeping a suspect in check and more like a man trying to protect a woman he cares about.”
Van hesitated, not because he was planning to lie. He was just trying to come up with a way to explain what had transpired between him and Kam in the last few days.
He finally settled on, “She’s different, Logan.”
So damn different.
“Okaaay…” His friend let the word drag on. “Different than…what, exactly?”
Every other woman I’ve ever known.
He opened his mouth, ready to utter those very words when the sound of a boat’s motor roaring to life caught his attention from the opposite side from where he stood.
“Someone’s here.” Van started back in that direction. “I can hear a…” His voice trailed when he spotted a light in the distance. A dark colored speedboat headed his way. “Don’t hang up. I think I’m about to have company.”
The words no more fell from his mouth when the first of several shots rang through the otherwise silent air.
Son of a…
“It’s a hit!” Van yelled into the phone as he dove for cover. Splinters of wood flew all around him as bullets struck the wall beside him. “I saw two men.” He relayed all he knew to Logan. “Dark speedboat. Automatic rifles. Shit!” A bullet whizzed just past his head. “I have to get to Kam.”And my gun.
“Braddock, wait?—”
Van didn’t wait. He ended the call, kept his phone securely in his fist, and wearing nothing but his boxer briefs, he took off for the woman he lo…
No. He didn’t love Kam. Not yet. Not this damn soon.
But he sure as hell cared deeply for her, and right now, his one and only thought was to get to her side and make sure she was okay.
Keeping his body crouched low, he dodged bullet after bullet as he made his way back to the cabin’s entrance. The two assholes trying to kill him drove circles around his boat.
Over and over again, they continued shooting as Van finally made it to the cabin door. With his head down, he reached for the door. He shoved it open and ran inside.
Slamming it shut behind him, he tossed his phone onto the couch to his right while keeping his body crouched low. Swiftly—and carefully—he covered the distance between the living room area to his bedroom. His heart pounded frantically against his ribs when he walked in to find the room empty.
Van spun in a circle, scanning the small room as the gunfire continued. After a slight pause, another barrage of bullets began striking the starboard side of the boat.
Glass shattered from the small windows, and he instantlydropped down to the floor. He looked up, and when he saw the bathroom door had been pulled shut, he knew that’s where Kam had gone to hide.
Without hesitation, Van used an Army crawl maneuver to safely carry himself toward his nightstand…and his gun. Once the weapon was in his hand, he did an immediate one-eighty.
He didn’t think about the bullet holes that had been gouged into the narrow door, or those he could see along the nearby wall. His only thought was on getting to Kam and making sure she was okay.
Van reached the door and started for the knob when a bullet struck the doorframe inches from his hand. Van cursed again, yanking his hand back while being forced to wait for the line of lethal projectiles to move away.
The first chance he got, he took it. He shot up to his feet and shoved open the door. Relief weakened his knees the second he saw her.
Kam was in the shower—still naked—with the door pulled shut. She’d crouched down onto the floor, knees pulled tightly to her chest while keeping her back pressed against the far wall. Her head was down, and her long hair covered her face completely.
It broke his heart to see her so understandably scared. But that same heart swelled when he noted an obvious absence of blood.
She wasn’t hit.
Van stepped one of his bare feet inside the shower’s insert. Just the one because that was as much of his body that would fit.
