Page 12 of Rescued

Switch growled, but neither of them looked serious about that. Breanna felt her tense muscles start to loosen a tiny bit.

Maybe she’d be okay, at least for tonight.

Maybe.

Chapter 6

They drove downhill from the airfield, Breanna and Switch and her bag in the back seat. She said to him, “So is this base a secret or something?”

“Or something.” He added, “And if I tell you any more I’ll have to kill you, so stop asking questions.”

She was pretty sure he was bluffing, but you could never tell.

Instead she said, “Thanks for saving me from the holding cell.”

“The cell is probably more comfortable. The cabin is crappy—there’s only one bed, and the roof leaks.”

Only one bed. She wondered if he expected to share it with her. Trying to sound brave and sure of herself, she said, “Well, I’m assuming the bed isn’t under the leak. And, you’re a wolf. You could always curl up on the floor.”

Switch said, “It’s my cabin! And my bed!”

But he didn’t deny being a wolf.

From the front seat Rex said, “It’s not your cabin. You’re not staying, right?”

He said, “Shut up, Rex.”

The rutted dirt road led through the forest, until they got to some kind of compound. Breanna couldn’t see it that well in the dark, but there was a cluster of buildings in an open area at the center that looked kind of official, and a few buildings in the surrounding forest that maybe were living quarters.

They drove down to the central cluster, to a small cabin on the edge of the grouping. As the Jeep pulled up a porch light went on, probably from a motion detector.

She was hoping that would make it look more homey, but it just showed how much it needed repair. The front porch sagged, and half the bottom panel had been ripped away from the screen door.

Switch did help her out of the jeep, which was a good thing because the ground was uneven and she was still wearing her heels. As they walked up the porch steps, one stiletto broke through the rotten boards and she stumbled, but he caught her before she could fall.

“Watch where you step.”

She would have given him a smart answer, but she was distracted by the screen door in front of her. Up close, it looked like the bottom panel had been clawed, and chewed. And… burned?

“What happened there?” Because she really hoped that no one was going to set them on fire tonight.

Switch shrugged. “That fucker Sanchez tried to steal my TV. So I did a drone strike on him. With a load of—” He glanced at her. “Um. Animal dung. Pissed him off.”

“And he tried to burn your cabin down?”

“Only a little.” He turned and caught the look on her face and said, “Hardly at all, really.”

Yeah. She hoped nobody got that pissed off at him while she was here. Maybe she should have stayed in the holding cell after all.

On the other hand, so far that she knew of, people had shot at Switch, yelled at him for stealing a helicopter, chewed up his front door, and tried to burn him out, and he didn’t seem fazed by any of it. Maybe sticking with him was the best plan.

She just hoped he wasn’t one of those guys who expected sex every time they did something nice. Not that sleeping with him would be a hardship, exactly, because he was totally hot. But guys who expected sex for doing you favors usually didn’t care that much if you were enjoying it.

And it was hard to enjoy it when it was basically payment for them being a decent human.

The inside of the cabin wasn’t much more welcoming than the outside. It was cold—no heat on at all, and no fire in the woodstove in the corner. The furniture and appliances were old and battered, and there were dusty, bent blinds over the windows.

In one corner was a small shabby kitchen, but the dining table was completely covered with wires and bits of electronic equipment, all of it in pieces.