Page 74 of The Outpost (Jamison Valley 4)
Silas looked back at me through the rearview mirror. “She misses you like crazy, Sabrina. If you said the word, she’d postpone the wedding in a heartbeat so you could be there. I’d be fine with it too.”
I gave him a sad smile. “There will be no postponing. You two have waited long enough.”
For months, Felicity’s letters had offered to postpone but my replies had always been final. My drama was not going to get in the way of their wedding.
“Take lots of pictures, make sure someone videos the ceremony, and freeze me a slice of wedding cake. That’s all I want. I refuse to have anything this happy be delayed on my account. Refuse.”
Silas chuckled. “Lis has one hell of a stubborn streak, but damn, Sabrina, I think you might have her beat. I’d pay good money to watch you two go head-to-head and see who comes out on top.”
“My money is on Sabrina,” Beau said.
I smiled, grateful for the easy banter.
We chatted more about the wedding, then Silas and Beau visited about things in Prescott while I sat quietly in the back. When we emerged from the forest and into the prairie, Silas called Jess and arranged for a meeting place outside of town while I swiped Beau’s phone to quickly check on my family’s social-media posts.
“Thirty minutes,” Silas said after he hung up with Jess.
Too anxious to speak, I just nodded and turned to my window. The late afternoon sun was bright on the tall grasses swaying in the breeze. I had been so confined to my forest and meadow, being in the open was unsettling. Out here, I was an easy target, not protected by the mountain walls of my valley.
I had only been gone three hours but I already missed the outpost.
It was hard to believe four months had passed since I’d made this trip. In a lot of ways, it felt as if I were stepping back in time. I was climbing out of the wardrobe from Narnia, rejoining the real world as if no time at all had passed since I’d entered a different realm.
Taking a deep breath, I willed my knees to stop shaking. I hoped that whatever Henry had to say wouldn’t take too long so the drive back wouldn’t be in the dark. Silas and Beau still had to get back to Prescott tonight.
I hadn’t appreciated just how much driving Beau had been doing to visit me. The thought of him coming back and forth was nearly as endearing as all the wonderful things he’d told me these last four months.
“There’s Jess,” Silas said exactly thirty minutes later, pulling off the side of a gravel road behind the sheriff’s huge, bronze truck.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, took a deep breath and pushed my door open with shaking hands. Beau led the way to Jess’s truck, and I followed on his heels, not wanting him out of my reach.
“Jess,” Beau said, planting his hands on his hips, effectively hiding me behind his massive frame.
Jess jerked his head to Henry. “This is Henry Dalton with the FBI. He’s here to talk with Sabrina.”
Beau stood taller, not letting me sidestep him. I was sure that behind his mirrored sunglasses, he was glaring at Henry, but because he kept leaning to block my side steps, I couldn’t get around him to see his face. His uber-protectiveness would have been funny if not for my jumping nerves. Finally, Beau dropped his arms and reached back to pull me right into the middle of the men’s circle.
I gave Henry an awkward wave and a small smile. “Hi, Henry.”
He frowned. “Sabrina.”
I’d always thought Henry was tall, standing an inch or two over six feet, but in this group, he was the shortest other than me. His wavy brown hair was perfectly styled, per usual, but his normal boyish grin was gone. Agent Dalton was not happy with me in the slightest.
“Well, thank god you’re not dead,” he said. “You know, you could have just told me where you were. It would have saved me from having to track you down.”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Secrecy has kind of been my thing lately.”
“No shit?” he deadpanned.
“How about instead of giving her a hard time, you tell us what you’re doing here?” Beau asked.
Henry glared over my head at Beau, then tipped his brown eyes back to me. “I’m here to take you into witness protection.”
“What?” My mouth fell open. “Why?”
“Probably because you decided to investigate a family with known Russian mafia ties without so much as a phone call to let me know about your ridiculous plan. Fuck, Sabrina. They could have killed you!”
At Henry’s outburst, Beau’s heat hit my back and Jess and Silas both stepped closer to my side.
