Hot Shot Hero Hostage - Chapter 15
Braden held out the card toward his wife. “‘Congratulations, Mack,’” he read for her. “Your dad strikes again with his matchmaking.”
Sam shook her head. “No…this doesn’t feel like him. If he’d been this romantic, I don’t think my mom would have left him.”
“The card says Mack,” he pointed out.
“My brother…?” she murmured.
Braden didn’t know much about his oldest brother-in-law. He knew he’d been named for his father. He’d never met the guy, but he’d heard stories. A lot of stories. He was either a Navy Seal, a mercenary or a CIA operative depending on who was telling the story.
“It would make more sense than Trick planning this,” Braden said. If Trick had orchestrated the gesture, it might explain how the note had gotten onto his desk, but Trick knew all too well how Braden felt about receiving threatening notes to have left him one like that.
Sam snorted in what sounded like agreement. “Trick’s less romantic than my dad. Colleen would have had to help him plan this.” She snorted again. “But then she would set it up to meet him here instead of us using the place.” Colleen was her old college roommate who had a crush on Sam’s brother. “Could it be Mack…?”
Braden shrugged. It didn’t matter because Braden doubted either man would have taken a shot at his sister. “I have no idea except that it’s probably too dangerous for us to accept his little surprise honeymoon present.”
But Sam was walking around the cabin, checking out the rooms. She pointed out a sliding door to the back deck. “There’s a hot tub. Let’s stay.”
Braden shook his head. “The gunshot…”
“Could have been a hunter,” she said. “They didn’t shoot at us again.”
“And the tires on the truck?” he asked. “And the battery? And your rental car?”
“Kids could have vandalized the truck, and I think I parked the rental in a different lot.”
He wanted to believe that as much as she did. But he couldn’t quite accept it.
“There’s electricity here,” she said. “You have a charger in your backpack, so we can charge our phones and report the shooting and vandalism, and in the meantime…” She rose up on her tiptoes and skimmed her lips along his throat where his pulse leaped like another part of his body.
He wanted her too much to resist. But he felt compelled to repeat what he’d said the first time they’d made love. “We can’t do this.”
“You need to do this,” she said, repeating her reply from all those months ago. “You need to just have some fun, relieve some tension.”
And just like he’d said then, he said again now and meant it even more. “It’s too dangerous.”