Page 94 of Protecting Bree
“Hate to interrupt, but we need to scoot,” Flash said. “The natives are getting restless.”
The men Mateo had sent after them exited the apartment building, but after taking one look at their dead boss on the ground, and the armed men standing around him—now with guns at the ready—they took off for the other end of the alley. Probably back to their truck.
But the civilians were curious too. Now that bullets had stopped flying, locals were coming out from wherever they’d holed up to see what was going on.
Preacher and Kevlar took hold of Smiley’s arms and, in one fluid motion, pulled him to his feet, with Bree still in his arms.
She let out a small squeak of surprise, but Smiley shushed her. “I’ve got you.”
And he did. Smiley had her. That’s all she needed to know. Her aches and pains returned with a vengeance, and all she could do was close her eyes and relax into Smiley’s arms when he adjusted his grip and put an arm under her legs, cradling her. He walked them, surrounded by his team, toward an SUV parked haphazardly against the curba block away. It was a miracle no one had stolen it in the short time it had been sitting there.
It was a tight fit, but Bree didn’t care. Mateo was dead. She was free.
A lightness came over her then, a feeling of having her entire life ahead of her. It was both scary and exciting at the same time.
“We can go back to the motel, or we can go straight to the airport,” Kevlar said.
Bree lifted her head and looked into Smiley’s eyes.
“Airport,” they said at the same time.
She grinned, and the look of love he gave her was so intense it felt as if they were the only two people on the planet.
“We don’t have your bag,” Preacher warned. “We left in too big a hurry to grab it.”
“Don’t need anything in there. I’ve got everything I need right here,” Smiley said, not breaking eye contact with Bree.
“Oh, but what about you guys?” she asked, reluctantly looking away from Smiley. “Do you have your stuff?”
“Nope,” Preacher answered. “Don’t care though. I’m guessing all our crap is infested with bedbugs anyway. Let the people who work at that piece-of-shit motel have it.”
“We’ll return the car and the weapons to the man we borrowed them from. We have our identification—yours and Bree’s included, Smiley,” Kevlar said. “I, for one, will be glad to get home.”
“I’m sure Julie and Fiona will be anxious to see you,” Safe added.
“As will the rest of the girls,” MacGyver added.
Bree desperately wanted a shower. And a huge bowl ofmac and cheese. And a gallon of water. Maybe a painkiller. But she’d get all that and more soon enough. Other than Smiley being unharmed, her biggest wish at that moment was to go home. To the apartment in Riverton that felt more like a home than any place she’d ever lived…simply because she shared it with the man she loved.
Closing her eyes, she relaxed against Smiley once more as Blink drove them toward freedom.
CHAPTER TWENTY
After what had been a very stressful experience, the flight back to the United States was ridiculously mundane. The private plane was waiting for them at the airport in Guayaquil, and after meeting with a mysterious contact in the parking lot to return the vehicle and borrowed weapons, Smiley carried Bree into a hangar and onto the plane.
He and his teammates had remained quiet and on alert. The atmosphere was tense, since the bands of roving militants were still causing havoc in the city.
It wasn’t until they were wheels up that Smiley relaxed. The trip home was spent hovering over Bree, who’d been given an IV by MacGyver, and as much protein and other food as Smiley could get her to eat.
They landed at a private regional airport in Southern California, and it shouldn’t have surprised him to find his Ford Ranger waiting for him in the parking lot, as well as Kevlar’s Crosstrek and MacGyver’s Explorer…and yet he was still surprised. He wasn’t sure who had arranged to deliver their vehicles—probably Tex, working with Wolf’s team—but he was grateful.
That was two days ago. After a visit to the doctor, he and Bree had holed up in his apartment. Truthfully, Smiley had needed the one-on-one time. They’d talked a lot. About what she’d been through, how Smiley had found her, and about what had happened there at the end.
Smiley had been afraid Bree would be emotionally damaged because of the violence, but she admitted she was a little worried about howokayshe was with the way everything went down. That led to a discussion of how he coped with some of the things he did on missions, and he’d arranged for a Zoom call for her with the psychologist he sometimes used after especially difficult deployments.
He’d spent the last two days pampering her, making sure she was eating healthy and drinking water constantly. Their phones had been exploding with voicemails, emails, and texts, but neither had been eager to do anything but soak in the other’s presence.
But it was time. Smiley noticed that Bree was already getting restless. He wanted nothing more than to keep her to himself, to continue to hole up here in his apartment, hidden from the rest of the world, spoiling her, making sure she healed completely with no complications. But his Bree was an extrovert. She needed to see Fiona and Julie, see for herself that they were okay. Thank his teammates and Wolf’s team, who’d had a hand in finding her. And she desperately wanted to meet Tex.
