by Abigail Owen
Finn took off running. What if the perp was already in Delaney’s apartment? What if he’d been hiding in there before they went upstairs and had attacked her while Finn had been sitting outside daydreaming?
He kept the phone to his ear. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Call Levi. Get the team over here. Then check on Sera. I’ve got Delaney.”
“Got it.”
Finn hung up as he hit the stairs, taking them two at a time before he burst into Delaney’s apartment. Delaney yelped where she stood in her bedroom in only a bra and panties, then grabbed a shirt off the bed, holding it front of her.
“Crap, Finn. You scared the hell out of me.”
“Grab a change of clothes for tomorrow and only the essentials. We’re leaving. Right now.”
She must’ve seen how serious he was, because immediately, despite her skin going ghostly white for the third time since he’d banged on Sera’s door, she pulled the t-shirt she’d grabbed over her head then reached for the jeans still on the bed. “What’s going on?”
“Someone clocked Aidan in the head while he was patrolling the grounds. Knocked him out.”
“Oh my God,” she moaned, more to herself. “This is my fault.”
“No,” he denied, more harshly than he intended.
She paused, but then continued, her motions turned more frantic. “Is he okay?”
“Yeah.”
She grabbed a duffel bag from the bottom of her closet and started tossing stuff in. “Is Sera going to be—”
“Aidan’s checking on her now and I’ve got my men on their way over.”
“Good.”
In under three minutes she turned to him, bag in hand. “I’m ready.”
Finn wanted to pause, to take a minute to acknowledge how damned incredible this woman was. Her life had been turned upside down, and did she lose her shit? No, she just put one foot in front of the other.
But instinct was driving him to get her to safety first, so he didn’t hesitate. He checked the door, then relaxed as he found Aidan at the bottom of the stairs already talking to a slightly babbling Sera.
“I can’t believe this is happening to us,” she was saying, her face buried in her hands.
“Don’t worry,” Aidan assured her. “We’ll keep you safe.”
The promise sounded hollow even to Finn’s ears. With all their advanced senses and training and experience as enforcers, they couldn’t even protect themselves. The key was going to be numbers and not splitting up.
Sera dropped her hands and frowned. “Why would firefighters act as bodyguards?”
This was one of those rare times when their human job made things more complicated.
“The police can’t step in until he actually does something against Delaney,” Aidan explained. “We’re just good guys trying to help.”
A small choking sound from the woman at his side had Finn glancing down at Delaney.
“I hate that I’m putting you in danger,” she said quietly.
At first, he thought she meant Sera, who she was looking at, but then she shifted her gaze to him, and he knew she meant the team. She cared about him and his men after knowing them hardly at all. A burst of warmth pulsed through him, dangerous in the way it drew him to her more than he already was physically.
Delaney broke the moment, moving to hug Sera.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“You stay safe,” Sera whispered back.
Finn exchanged a glance with Aidan over their heads. The rookie nodded. He was all in to protect these women from Graff.
No way is that fucker a simple human.
Dragon. He knew it for sure. Maybe something else. Didn’t matter. They’d take him down.
…
The Huracáns, as she’d been introduced to them, didn’t mess around. A truck showed up way too soon after Finn had burst into her apartment. Five men piled out. How they’d all fit in there with their long legs and broad shoulders, she had no idea. Even Sera’s mouth had dropped a little, despite having been immune to the male sex since her husband died.
Two of the men—Kanta and Hall, she’d learned—had remained behind to guard Sera and the winery. She hoped they planned to sleep in shifts, because no way could her small apartment accommodate more than one at a time, if that. Her blue-check-patterned couch, bought secondhand, wasn’t exactly comfy for men who stood well over six feet. They’d have to sleep curled up like a fetus, probably with knees and arms jutting out over the edges. She’d tried to go back up and help get them settled but was told they’d figure it out.
Finn had hustled her into one of the trucks with Aidan and another guy, and the others piled into the other one and sped back to the team’s headquarters.
As soon as they arrived, Finn showed her back to what he called the bunkhouse. As soon as she stepped through the door, she saw what he meant. This room was tall, and each bunk sported three single beds. Total, they could sleep maybe eighteen men in this room. Super basic, the bedframes were metal, and the beds were made neatly, military-style, with white sheets and pillows, a white blanket folded neatly at the end of each bunk.
“I’m going to stay in here? With who?” she asked.
His expression didn’t change, but she got an inkling he was suddenly amused. “What if I said me?”
Half of her wanted to take that comment and run with it; the mental image of tangling with Finn, messing up those pristine white sheets had heat zinging through her core. But she’d promised herself to keep up her own walls, and the easiest way to do that was to make him throw up his.
So instead Delaney crossed her arms, not buying it. “Yeah, right.”
“Why not?”
She lifted a single eyebrow. “I scare you too much.”
That shut him up.
She ignored him and explored. At the far end, double doors led to a kitchenette with a pine table and chairs that had seen better days. She spied a functional bathroom through another door.
Momentarily distracted, Delaney turned to Finn, eyebrows raised. “Don’t you guys have your own homes?”
“Sure. This is more for use during long training sessions in the spring, or if other crews are working a fire nearby and need a place to stay.” He took a step back, toward the door. “I’ll let you get unpacked. There’s a footlocker there.” He pointed. “You’re welcome to go anywhere in the place.”
With that, he disappeared, leaving her to settle in on her own.
Delaney blew out a long, tension-laden gust of air. “How’d I get here?” she murmured to herself before getting down to unpacking.
When she’d woken in that barn full of smoke and flame, she never in a kazillion years would’ve guessed this was where she’d be. In a loony bin or a jail, maybe. Not here.
She sighed. Since she’d only thrown a few changes of clothes and her toiletries into her bag, it didn’t take too long to unpack. A little snooping revealed the guys all had clothes in the other footlockers and toiletries in the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, she wandered out to the common areas, only the guys weren’t there. She peeked in offices and went to the front room with the foosball table, then outside to look around. Where on earth were they?
Moving back inside, she caught the low rumble of male voices, which led her all the way back to the kitchenette, where she’d just been. Only, now it was full of men. How had she missed them?
Finn and Aidan both leaned against the counter, beers in hand. The other five in the room were at the table.
Finn had his back to her. At a nudge from Aidan he turned, then beckoned her over. “Beer?”
She shook her head. “Where’d you guys come from? I was out in the main room, but none of you were there, then poof.”
Finn and Aidan exchanged a glance. “We were outside. You must’ve just missed us.”
Rather than lean against the counter like he was, she hopped up, taking a seat on the countertop. “Do you mind?”
she asked when he raised his eyebrows. “It’s a bit of a habit.”
It wasn’t really, she just needed any advantage she could get, even subtle power plays like not letting them tower over her and not turning her back to the others in the room, who sat at the table.
“How’s your head?” she asked Aidan.
He raised a hand to the back of his head, and she got the fleeting impression that he’d forgotten all about it. But then he shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”
Had she imagined his confusion? Shouldn’t he be laid up?
Finn interrupted her musing to do a quick round of introductions, and she let the thought go. Delaney did her best to commit names and faces to memory. Aidan, Levi, and Titus she already knew. Still, she added mental labels to help her keep them all straight.
Aidan she’d already named “McSerious” yesterday, so she stuck to that.
Levi was “The Golden Viking.” Make that “The Happy Golden Viking,” she amended as he grinned and tipped his beer to her.
She already had a soft spot for Titus, who she thought of as “The Quiet Man.” Leaner than the others, his fathomless black eyes were a tad intimidating, but she got the impression that he didn’t miss anything. He ducked his head when she nodded his way.
Drake she mentally labeled “The Glowerer” because he sat the farthest away, even putting space between himself and the others at the table, and barely acknowledged her. Whatever the case, he was annoyingly gorgeous just like all of them, and his red-tinted eyes fascinated her.
The other two, Rivin and Keighan, she’d dubbed “The Trouble Twins.” She doubted they were related, more like best friends. One had dark hair while the other was more a dirty blond, but they both had eerie glacial eyes so pale they appeared closer to white, reminding her of icicles that used to hang from her porch awning in wintertime. The two seemed to do everything in unison and always finished each other’s sentences.
“The boss has already told us we’re not allowed to hit on you,” Rivin, the darker one, said.
“So don’t take it personal,” Keighan finished.
Silence dropped over the kitchen until Delaney burst out laughing. “I won’t.”
“See,” Keighan said to Finn. “I bet she would be—”
“—cool about us.” Rivin filled in.
Still laughing, Delaney held up her hands “Wait. What am I going to be cool about?”
Rivin tipped his chair back, the muscles of his legs bunching under his jeans. “About how we share—”
Finn shook his head and Rivin cut himself off.
Delaney glanced between them, too curious to let this go now. “Share what?”
Both men glanced at their leader who may or may not have been clenching his teeth by now. With obvious reluctance, he waved them to go ahead.
“Women,” Rivin finished, and grinned.
Oh. Delaney blinked and then blinked again as she absorbed what that meant. Oh! Not her thing at all, but the mental image had her body flushing just the same. Or maybe her body was on edge because Finn was beside her.
She did her best to play it off, smiling at the two. “You wouldn’t be interested in me then, fellas. I’m a one-man-at-a-time kind of gal.”
Both men grinned back at her—dual images of devilry. Keighan waggled his eyebrows. “Bet we could make you change your mind.”
A low rumble sounded from Finn beside her and Delaney whipped her head around to stare at him. “Did you just…growl?”
He didn’t say anything, hard gaze on the two men seated at the kitchen table. For their part, Rivin and Keighan had both frozen, all the fun blanked from their faces.
Whoa.
Finally, Finn looked at her. “That wasn’t a growl. That was frustration. I’d already warned them not to make you uncomfortable.”
“They didn’t.” Delaney narrowed her eyes. Something else was going on here, she’d swear it, but damned if she knew what. “And it sounded like a growl to me.”
“It wasn’t.” He straightened abruptly, took his beer, and left the room.
She watched him go with equal parts frustration and regret, then slowly realized the rest of his men still watched her. She glanced around. “Was it something I said?”
Levi moved closer and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about the boss. We never have women here is all. Except Lyndi.”
“Who’s Lyndi?” she had to ask.
“Drake’s sister,” Aidan supplied.
She flicked a glance at “The Glowerer” in the corner and wondered if the siblings were anything alike.
But that only had Delaney frowning more. “So other than Lyndi, you never have women here? Is it against the rules or something?”
“No,” Rivin said.
She expected him to go on, but he didn’t. Was there something odd about this setup? Or was her paranoid mind just looking for a reason for her discomfort? Something about it still didn’t sit right. The niggling notion that they’d accepted her weird story about blackouts, fires, and her stalker so readily because this group of men were a little odd themselves inserted itself into her thinking. She was positive they weren’t telling her everything. Then again, after years of hiding her own issues, who was she to force them to tell her more?
As long as she was safe. Although…
Come to think of it, she had no proof that anything they’d told her was true. They could have written that note, and no one had seen Aidan get hit. What if they weren’t the good guys here? Apprehension, just enough to spur her on, itched down her spine.
She leaned back, trying to get a look at Aidan, but stopped when he raised his eyebrows. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.
He lowered the beer bottle he’d been drinking from. “Thanks.”
“What did he hit you with?” she prodded.
He glanced over her at Titus, who’d stood up. “I’m not sure.”
Delaney smiled, trying to go for casual curiosity. “No stitches needed or anything? I’m surprised you didn’t go to the hospital.” Wouldn’t someone who’d been hit in the head hard enough to knock them out need stitches, or at least need to be checked out for a concussion?
“Fallon’s our usual medic, but Titus checked me out.”
“I fill in when he’s not around,” Titus supplied quietly.
Oh. Right. Firefighters with medical training. Duh. Of course they did. Did she have F-O-O-L stamped across her forehead in neon letters? “Who’s Fallon?”
Rivin smiled and she tried to not stare at those unusual pale eyes. “The boss’s younger brother.”
That hung her up. Finn had a brother? A younger brother at that. “Hard to imagine a world with two of him in it. Are they much alike?”
Levi snorted. “Before Finn’s ma…wife died, they were. Finn changed after that. He’s…more serious now.”
Delaney wasn’t sure what to wrap her mind around first. Finn had been married? And she died? Was that who he’d lost in the fire? How awful. Her heart ached for him, settling like a lump in her chest. At the same time, she was dying to ask more questions but suspected Finn wouldn’t like being talked about that way. So she left it.
Instead, she tried to picture a less serious Finn. Every so often, she caught that small smile teasing the corners of his mouth, a hint of fun showing beneath the serious. Maybe what she’d thought was emotional whiplash was actually Finn struggling with the two sides of himself.
Now that she understood him a little better, she suspected she could like that man. A lot.
Delaney hopped down from the counter, needing something to do to bleed off her churning thoughts. The last few days had left her mind on a permanent spin cycle, and she didn’t want to think anymore. “Any objections to me cooking dinner?”
“Hell no,” Riven said.
Keighan waved at the kitchen. “Cooking is all yours.”
Levi shook his head. “We can’t let you do that.”
The twins’ grins disappeared. “Yes, we can,” Rivin said.
“She offered,” Keighan added.
“Don’t you two have KP duty tonight?” Titus asked.
The grins were back. “Sure do.”
“Really,” Delaney interrupted before Levi could shut them down again. “I need to occupy my mind and my hands. Please let me.”
Levi considered her with those leonine eyes for a long beat. Then he ran a hand over his jaw. “All right, but these two show you where everything is first and clean up after.”
“Thanks—”
Two whoops of triumph overrode her thank you, and Delaney could only laugh again.
At least she’d be entertained while one of two things happened. Either these men fixed her life…or it crumbled around her ears in rubble. She still wasn’t remotely sure which destination was most likely on this road she was traveling.
Chapter Ten
Finn dropped into the chair behind his desk and plunked his head into his hands. He’d growled at his teammates. At men who were his brothers. Over a woman.
Worse, he’d growled in front of a human. How he hadn’t scared the shit out of Delaney, he had no idea. Perhaps after years of dealing with fires and stalkers, she was growing immune to the adrenaline that should’ve shot through her body at the clear sign of a predator close by.
Instead she’d blinked at him with those wide eyes…and called him on it.
Even more disturbing, he’d had the strangest urge to join her teasing, so he’d gotten the hell out of there. Meanwhile, there was no way his men were going to let that pass without comment. They’d held back around Delaney, but he owed them an explanation. Trouble was, he didn’t have one other than the fact that some part of him down deep—the animal side, all instinct and leashed power—wanted her.
He was drawn to her. As simple as that, and as complicated as that.
He wanted her, but his past wouldn’t let him have her. He couldn’t see Phoebe die again, even if it was in his head. Not only would it force him to relive that hell, it would sour any feelings he had for the woman involved. All he’d be able to see in her eyes was his dying mate.
He didn’t want that with Delaney.
Having all the guys move up to the bunks with them would help keep him from being alone with Delaney. Would help him keep his distance. Either that or lose his mind. Lifting his head, he flipped open his computer. Yes, he was hiding, but he might as well work until dinner. As good an excuse as any.