Cover Me (Elite Force #1)(71)
Author: Catherine Mann

If not more.

She’d told the police about Brett’s “insurance” plan in his briefcase, and they were sending electronic divers down in an attempt to retrieve it from the boat. She couldn’t even begin to fathom what it might contain, what could possibly be worse than had already happened. But at least she could know the authorities weren’t in the dark any longer.

Still no word from Phoenix, and she was beginning to wonder if maybe he had run after all. The thought that he would actually abandon his wife and child was more than she could wrap her brain around, but she still had to hope he was alive out there somewhere. Thankfully, her nephew was safe with Astrid’s parents.

At least she knew her sister was happy, already making plans with Flynn. The two of them had accepted the helicopter ride back up the mountain to be with Flynn’s parents right now. And Misty wanted to stay near their nephew until the police officially cleared everyone in the village—or made any necessary arrests. What kind of legacy was that to leave a child? A criminal for a mother and a father who ran? Her chest grew tight with regrets.

Wade replaced the poker and stroked back her hair, still damp from the shower they’d shared. “I can arrange for a flight home for you, if you’ve changed your mind.”

She shook her head, certain in her decision to stay right where she was. Working things out with Wade. “I want to be here with you, for as long as we can be together before you have to leave. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that’s what you wanted too.”

Especially after the way he’d held her so fiercely in the life raft and how tenderly he’d made love to her.

“Can you tell me you aren’t having regrets about not going back home with your sister?”

“I have regrets about what happened, about not picking up on the signs. It’s become clear to me in a hundred different ways how cutting ourselves off has left us open and vulnerable. The place I knew as home isn’t going to exist anymore after this.”

“I’m so damn sorry for that.” He tugged her to his chest and she leaned into him, the steady thump of his heart under her such a welcome sound she’d feared never hearing again.

Chewie nosed her knee insistently, shuffling into the circle with determined garbled noises until she couldn’t help but laugh. God, it felt good after the horror of the past days. “I haven’t forgotten about you, Chewie. Not for a second.”

Her dog was recovering well from his pulled tendon, thank goodness, and should be back up to speed in another couple of weeks. Burying her fingers into his thick fur, she collided with Wade’s hands right there alongside hers.

Wade grinned. “What can I say? I’m getting attached to your dog.”

“Oh really?” she teased back, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief because she and Chewie were pretty much a package deal. “I haven’t had time to think through all the details about where I want to live yet, but I do need to be with my sister to help see her through her surgery. I should have known that at the start.”

“So you are willing to move.” His fingers linked with hers in the husky mutt’s thick pelt. “For Misty.”

“For Misty, yes, but for me too.” And for Wade, if this relationship was going where she thought, where she hoped it was going. “My skills as a guide and workout trainer can be used just about wherever I go, so while I may not own the place, at least I would have a marketable job history. A small town would probably suit me best, some kind of rural community.”

One with mom-and-pop diners, rustic B and Bs, and wood-burning fireplaces crackling a hand’s reach away. Most of all, one with wildernesses to explore.

“Alaska has plenty of those,” he agreed. “And what if once I return, I wanted you to come where I’ll be? What if I could find a nice rural town nearby?”

“That sounds… huge. But workable. You understand though that it would take an independent, strong person to make such a radical change. A damsel in distress just isn’t going to cut it, especially for a guy who’s got a scary dangerous career that takes him all around the world for extended periods of time.”

He raised his hands in surrender, angles of his beard-stubbled face starker with the morning light streaking through the windows. “Okay, I get the message and completely agree. You are not the clinging-vine sort, and believe me, I respect that. You can take care of yourself, and quite well, I might add—”

“Thank you.” She stopped him with a nip to his bottom lip. “I needed to hear you say that and know that you mean it. I think we make a formidable team, you, me, and Chewie.”

“I concur.” He nipped her right back, then again, until his hands were in her hair and his body covering hers on the rug.

Gliding her hands over his shoulders, along his back, she stared up into his beautiful cocoa-brown eyes and realized she could lose herself in those no matter where she lived. “Where will you be transferring to once you return from your four months in the Middle East?”

“Ever heard of Patrick Air Force Base?”

“No. Is there snow?”

He winced, rolling onto his side, worry furrowing his forehead. “Actually, it’s in Florida, near Cape Canaveral.”

“No snow then.”

“Afraid not. As a matter of fact, you’ll need lots of sunscreen.”

Florida? Somewhere like Washington State or North Dakota might have been a little easier to grasp, but then she’d never been one to embrace ease. “I’ve always dreamed of visiting the beach again. And in the meantime, it’s not like you’re going to the moon. We’ll be able to talk, right?”

“Periodically, yes. Some of the guys set up Skype accounts.”

“I definitely prefer face-to-face Internet now.” She shivered to think how easily her seemingly innocent Internet café had been a portal for such evil. Brett Livingston had set up shop in her backyard, closing down their communication to the outside world so that everything was filtered through him.

Funny that she’d grown up in a community that shunned most technology, while she’d embraced it, setting up a business that helped residents connect to the world. Yet she’d probably walk away from this nightmare more wary of technology than most people.

“You’ll always know who you’re talking to,” Wade promised as he knuckled her chin upward and kissed her frown away. “And I’ll be able to tell you to your face how very much you mean to me.”