I dial Max.
He doesn’t answer.
Already Asher is pushing again. “Why didn’t he do a secure internet drop to his buyer?”
“He’s not tech-savvy enough to do it securely,” I reply. “And he’s not operating with a team.”
“I’ll do it for him,” Asher replies. “Then we don’t have the drop-off exposure.”
“Oh sure,” I say dryly. “I’ll tell him he can trust you. I’m sure he’ll agree. Bottom line. I owe him a favor. It’s not my fault if he uses it in a stupid way. Onwards we go.”
And so, we do, for a few long hours on the highway, all of which Max isn’t answering my calls.
A big ass problem since I have an address for the drop-off and nothing more. At two in the morning, Adam parks us a few blocks from the warehouse destination, in a sea of warehouses.
“What do you want to do?” he asks. “You have no instructions.”
“What I’ve always done,” I say. “Bury the prize in a place he’ll only find if I want him to find it.” I open the door and Adam and Asher follow.
The three of us coordinate a scouting mission and it’s not long before we’re in the woods behind the dark warehouse. I pick a tree, dig a hole, and bury the data drive. Then I carve an X in the tree. That’s it. As far as I’m concerned, we’re done.
Fifteen minutes later, the three of us load up in the car, and I dial Max. When he doesn’t answer, I don’t leave a message. I have no idea who might have his phone. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“I talked to Blake,” Asher says. “He wants us out of here. We have a plane waiting for us about thirty minutes away.”
I don’t argue. Only a stupid fucktard would stay around to get killed. And I take great pride in never being a stupid fucktard. I want us out of here, too.
***
By the time me, Adam, and Asher pull up to the private airstrip for our flight from Nashville to Colorado, I’ve decided that yes, I could have walked away from this. But my gut told me not to for a reason. As much as I’ve tried to deny, the locations listed on that map say I’m a part of this, even if it’s indirectly. And any unknown could be dangerous, and it’s not me I’m worried about.
It’s Candace.
I exit the vehicle and corner Asher. “If there’s a connection to me, I need to know.”
“I’m working on it. So is Blake.”
I give a nod and say, “Thanks, man.”
A few minutes later we all load up on the private jet and do what we’ve been trained to do to be battle-ready. Grab sleep where we can get it. We snooze and eat on the three-hour flight. The plane lands in Denver, where we’re an hour and a half from Estes Park.
Blake, ever the efficient one, and a perfectionist, has a car waiting on us. Once we’re on the road, we hit a truck stop, shower, change, and grab food at the diner attached to the joint. We don’t do any magical planning this time. The food goes down. And then we’re on the highway, tracking our path forward.
It’s then that I dial Candace. She picks up on the first ring. “Tell me you’re coming home.”
“Almost, baby,” I say. “Tomorrow,” I add, hoping like hell I can turn that into tonight. “But I’m in Colorado. We’re going to drop some cash to Max, and be out of here.”
“So there’s been no problem?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when we get home.”
“Oh God,” she whispers. “What happened?”
“Candy, baby—”
“You’re not going to tell me,” she says flatly.
“Not right now,” I confirm. “Later.”
“All right,” she concedes. “You’re alive. That’s what matters. I love you, Rick Savage. Come home to me. I waited a long time to marry you.”
“I love you, too. I’ll call you again if I can. Okay?”
“Yes, okay.” She hesitates and then says, “See you soon.” And then she hangs up.
Adam grins in my direction. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d be the married guy calling wifey with words of love.”
I eye him. “You’re next.”
“Not him,” Asher jokes. “Never Adam. He’s immune to ways of the heart. He said so.”
My mind flashes back to the night I met Candace, reliving a night that changed me forever.
It’s raining fucking cats and dogs, which is no finish for a hellish night at the hospital, and one emergency after another. Sleep would be a luxury when I have the ten stacks of paperwork to do that my father handed over to me. That’s what happens when your father is an acclaimed surgeon and you’re just an intern: you get the grunt work. And you drink a lot of coffee.
I whip into the parking lot Halcyon for coffee and whatever bakery item hits my fancy, and the stop is near the door, vacant because some asshole parked over the lines. Well, I’m the asshole that will teach the other asshole a lesson. The rain blessing me pulls back, retreating into the dark sky. I pull my hoodie up anyway, open my door, and step outside.
I’m greeted by a fireball of a pretty woman, her long, dark hair in beautiful disarray, her green eyes blazing.
“What are you doing?” she demands.
Amused by this intrusion, the tiredness seeps from my bones, and I’m fully engaged. “Staring at a pretty lady, it seems,” I say, my tone reflecting my immediate interest.
Her eyes flash with a hint of surprise at the compliment, her temper momentarily cooled, only to fire right back up again. “I can’t get into my car. You parked on top of me.”
“You parked over the line and I didn’t want to get my pretty little head all wet.”
“I didn’t park over the line.”
“You did,” I assure her. “Go look.” I motion toward her car. “I’ll wait here.”
“I’m not going to look. You have to move. I can’t open my door.”
I cross my arms in front of my chest, and at six-foot-five, I peer down at her with my most intense look, my tone serious as fuck, just as I intend. “What are you going to give me if I do?”
“How about I save your manhood from my knee?”
I laugh, low and deep, a laugh I needed for reasons most wouldn’t understand. And crazy as fuck as it might sound, I want to kiss this stranger. I want to kiss her in a bad way. “How about,” I say, my gaze lowering to her mouth, and lingering before it lifts, as I add, “you have coffee,” I pause for effect, “with me.”
There’s more of that surprise in her eyes but it’s replaced with indignation. “Are you seriously bribing me for entry into my own vehicle?”
Thunder roars above us and the rain begins to plummet down again. I don’t even think about what comes next. I catch her hand and pull her close, all her soft curves pressed to my hard body, really fucking hard right about now. I lift her, turn her, and sit her inside my truck where she’s warm and dry and then quickly follow. She scurries to the other side of the vehicle, where she cannot escape because, of course, I’m parked right on top of her vehicle. I don’t want her to escape, either. But I also don’t want her to want to escape. I want her to stay, right here, with me, and I want her to do it because she wants to do it.