by Janie Crouch
“Baby stood me up for our non-date.”
Chapter Nine
Just because Baby liked to talk didn’t mean he didn’t know how to be silent. And he had been silent all night, combing the acres of property surrounding the Linear Tactical facilities.
He’d never been a part of the military like the Linear guys, but he still had wilderness and tactical skills. He was as trained in weapons and fighting as Finn, Zac, and the rest of them.
The guys had created Linear Tactical to teach the skills they possessed. Train civilians in tactical awareness and survival methods. Baby may not have the Special Forces pedigree, but he knew what he was doing.
The guys were out on a mission. They were a close-knit team, even though they didn’t work for Uncle Sam anymore. And tonight, the team was going to have to function at its highest level in order to prevail.
Baby wasn’t part of the team. He’d never been part of the team. But his job was important. Enemies had been known to come after the Linear Tactical family, exploiting what they thought were the men’s weaknesses.
Their women.
It was a paradox. The women they loved were simultaneously what made them stronger and were the chink in their armor. There was nothing the Linear men wouldn’t do to protect the women they loved.
So, while they were all off taking down a potential terrorist threatening one of their own, Baby was on protection detail.
“Report. Over.” Cade O’Conner’s voice sounded in Baby’s ear. The man had been his best friend since kindergarten. He wasn’t a soldier either, though he also possessed the skills he needed to protect those around him.
“Definitely one tango nearby. Another south of Finn’s house.” There was a third somewhere out there, too, if Baby wasn’t mistaken.
“Roger that. I spoke to Wyatt. Evidently, Phoenix is trying some sort of crazy skydiving stunt. And not for YouTube views this time.”
Baby had no doubt Phoenix would do whatever was necessary to get Girl Riley back safely.
“Sorry about your honeymoon, Cade.” Baby kept his voice low so it wouldn’t carry, although from the tree where he was perched, he knew there wasn’t anyone around.
“It’s okay. I’ll have Peyton forever. I plan on talking her in to at least three dozen honeymoons over the course of the rest of our lives.”
Baby was glad his friend had finally ended up with his soulmate. And was pissed as hell that there was no way he could make his non-date with Quinn.
Almost as pissed as he was at the fact that a terrorist had sent three thugs to hurt, or worse, his sister-in-law and two young nephews.
“Watch your back,” Cade said. “Zac is filtering all communication through Kendrick from here on out. It doesn’t sound good. The more Kendrick finds out about the guy who took Girl Riley, the uglier it looks. He’s a psychopath.”
“The guys will handle it. It’s what they do.”
They were somewhere in the Middle East, but Baby wasn’t sure where. He was both glad and upset Quinn had turned down his invitation to the wedding reception. If she’d been there, she would’ve gotten caught up in the chaos, but at least she wouldn’t be sitting up at Pike’s Peak, the local quarry lake, like she would be in a couple of hours wondering what the hell had happened to him.
And he damn well wasn’t going to think about what she tasted like, and those fucking sexy moans she made as she came. Because...
Ouch. God damn it. A hard-on while crouched in a tree on lookout duty was fucking uncomfortable.
And it wasn’t like she hadn’t starred in his fantasies as he’d jacked off—twice a day— since her birthday.
He had it bad for this woman. Getting her to agree to meet him at dawn was supposed to be the first of many dates, and now he was going to miss it because of a terrorist halfway around the world.
“Keep me posted,” he told Cade.
Cade had his own people to look after, but also had a full security team with him. Baby’s mission was protecting Finn’s wife and family. Zac’s fiancée Anne was also in the house.
And there were people here to harm them.
It was time for Baby to go on the offensive rather than stay on defense. It was one thing when the team hadn’t been exactly sure what sort of situation they were dealing with, but now they knew the guys in these woods were waiting for orders from their boss to carry out hits on women and children. Baby was not going to sit around waiting for that call to come through.
He took one last look around from his vantage point in the tree. He knew exactly where one of the bad guys was and was fairly certain about the second.
It was that potential third he wasn’t sure about. His gut told him the guy was out there, but so far, Baby hadn’t found any proof to support that fact.
Finn had been smart to build a ladder onto a tree that afforded a 360-degree view of his property, all while keeping the observer fairly sheltered. Although it wouldn’t be long before Finn’s son Ethan discovered this little gem and made his way up here with Jess, Ethan’s faithful shadow, not far behind. Finn would probably have to tear down the ladder if he wanted to keep them out.
Carefully and silently, Baby made his way down the steps, dropping the last five feet and landing on the ground in a crouch.
There it was, that third man feeling again. Baby stayed silent, waiting, listening. He knew these woods, had grown up here. It didn’t matter how good of a thug the terrorist boss had sent, it wasn’t going to change the fact that Baby had home field advantage.
He forced himself to stay still and quiet long past what he felt necessary.
This was the time when a life or death chess game could be won or lost with five extra minutes of patience.
The return of the normal sounds of the forest around him assured Baby that there had been someone around, but he was no longer nearby.
It didn’t take him long to find the first man. The guy obviously wasn’t trained in any sort of wilderness subterfuge. Baby had two weapons on him—a tranquilizer gun and his Glock. He used the tranquilizer on this guy, more because it was quieter than because the man wasn’t a lethal threat.
Baby was on him seconds after he hit the ground, securing his wrists and ankles with zip-ties. He wouldn’t be awake for hours, but when he did wake, he wasn’t going anywhere. Baby gagged him to make sure he couldn’t notify anyone if he woke early.
The man had a cell phone that Baby picked up. A text message floated across the screen, but it was in a language that didn’t use the English alphabet. Probably Arabic. He dropped the phone back by the guy.
He headed west, toward where the second guy had been when Baby had last seen him. He wasn’t difficult to track either. The guy was heavy on his feet, leaving all but clear footprints in some of the soft moss near the base of the trees.
The bad news—he was definitely heading toward the house.
“Damn it.” Cade’s voice rang out in his ear again. “Take out your tango, Baby. Shit’s going down. Kendrick found and translated kill orders that were just sent. We’ve got tangoes here too.”
“Roger.”
Baby went silent, as did Cade. The time for talking was over. He picked up speed, no longer worrying about staying quiet.
Because this guy wasn’t the problem. It was the third one Baby had to find.
He pulled the tranquilizer and shot the second man without slowing down as he ran behind him. The guy hit the ground unconscious with a surprised look still on his face.
Now he had to find the third man. That wouldn’t be as easy, and Baby assumed he was better trained or smarter about wilderness survival in general than his two cohorts. Plus, Baby was about to lose the advantage because the sun was coming up.
And damn it, that sunrise meant Quinn was fucking waiting for him at Pike’s Peak, with no idea why he wasn’t going to be there. He pushed that thought out of his head. He couldn’t afford to feel anything right now, couldn’t afford a distraction, even Quinn.
Baby’s one bi
g advantage was that he knew the guy would be heading toward Finn and Charlie’s house. Charlie and Anne were each capable in their own right, opposite in nature but both strong. That wouldn’t be worth much against someone with a blind kill order.
The guy left in the woods had been here since Girl Riley had been taken more than twenty-four hours ago. He’d been waiting on the message he’d just gotten.
The other two were general thugs, but this one was different. Smarter. He hadn’t used the waiting time to smoke cigarettes or text his partner. He’d used it to learn the lay of the land. To figure out the best point for infiltration.
That’s what Baby would’ve done.
It also gave Baby a good idea from which direction the man would come at the house—he’d come toward the back porch with all the windows.
Keeping low and moving quickly, Baby made his way around to that side of the building. He kept his loop wide, wanting to come at the guy from behind, and hopefully, take him by surprise.
Baby hadn’t slept in more than thirty-six hours, but he locked down the exhaustion and forced more speed out of his muscles. There was no way this guy was getting to his sister-in-law and nephews on his watch.
Baby spotted the guy, letting out a curse when he realized the man was much closer to the house than Baby had expected. He saw a shadow cross inside one of the windows—Charlie or Anne—and was glad the guy didn’t have a sniper rifle.
But shit, he did have something in his hand. It looked like a ball. What in the—
Fuck. Grenade.
Baby lifted his tranq gun and pointed it, knowing it wasn’t long range enough to hit the guy. His Glock wouldn’t be any better. It didn’t matter. In that moment, nothing mattered except getting to him before that grenade left his hand. His eyes locked on the man like a predator. He ran, shooting.
The guy turned, the tranquilizer darts falling short, as Baby had known they would.
Still running at him full speed, Baby threw the tranq gun to the ground to draw his Glock as the guy reached for his own weapon. Both of them fired, diving for cover at the same time, a deadly, synchronized dance. The guy’s bullet splintered the tree Baby had been standing in front of half a second before. Baby didn’t think he’d hit the other guy either.
Without pausing, Baby rolled back into a crouching position on the ground and scrambled along the trees in the opposite direction than the way he’d dove. Maybe the guy wouldn’t expect him from this way.
“Baby?”
Shit. Charlie calling from the house. She’d heard the shots.
He immediately gave up his surprise element, hoping it would keep the guy from shooting at her. “Inside, Charlie. Away from the windows.”
He heard the door slam then dropped lower and belly-crawled toward the house as shots rang out in his direction once again. Damn it, the guy was getting closer to the house. Soon he would be close enough to lob that grenade.
Baby popped his head up over a fallen log then ducked back quickly, expecting a bullet in his direction. But there was nothing.
Not good.
He couldn’t spot the guy, which meant he was behind the trees, and there was nothing between his grenade and the house.
Baby took off at a sprint. There! His eyes zeroed in on the man, his legs pumped impossibly faster, adrenaline spiking, clearing his head of any other thought. The guy was pulling the pin from the grenade as Baby hit him in a full-body tackle.
The grenade flew out of the guy’s hand as they hit the ground, fortunately with the pin still in. But before Baby could get his gun pointed at him, the guy knocked it out of his hand with a blow to the wrist that stopped barely short of breaking bones.
Fuck. This guy was trained.
With the angle they were at, Baby used the best weapon he had to strike the guy beneath him—head butting him in the forehead. He ignored the pain in his own head and followed up with a punch.
The guy was big and tough, not about to go out so easily. He took the punch with a grunt, then rolled them, knocking Baby off.
They both jumped to their feet. Baby leapt at the guy again, reaching for the gun that was still in the man’s hand before he could swing it around and end this before it began. They hit the ground with as much brutal force as the first time. Baby was able to knock the gun loose but took a hard right hook in the face for the effort.
The guy rolled away once more, going for the grenade.
Oh, hell no.
Baby kicked at him, catching him in the ribs and knocking him to the side. Baby scrambled for the grenade, letting out a hard grunt as the guy caught him with multiple blows to the back. He managed to get the grenade, but the guy was determined to get it back.
They were way too close to the house. A house with Baby’s newborn nephew inside and Charlie’s elderly parents—people who couldn’t get away. He needed to take the explosive out of play.
He took a blow to the face as he reached over and grabbed the pin from the weapon. From on top of him, the guy’s eyes widened then narrowed.
He knew what Baby had in his hand.
One-one thousand. Two-one thousand.
Baby threw the grenade as far as he could in the opposite direction of the house. He and the guy separated and dove for cover, hands over their ears.
The thunderous noise split the silence of dawn. If Baby’s ears hadn’t been ringing from the blows he’d taken, they were now.
The dude was pissed that Baby had gotten rid of his toy. He was back on Baby in a second, snarling as his blows rained hard and fast. Baby blocked what he could and took what he couldn’t.
He was pretty evenly matched with this guy who he could now see clearly since the sun was fully up—middle eastern descent of some sort. Cold, hard eyes.
But it didn’t matter how evenly matched they were. The side with the most to lose would always fight the hardest. There was no way Baby was letting some killer get to his family while his brother was off fighting the rest of this war.
Baby had a lot of weaknesses, but fighting wasn’t one of them. It was time to end this.
Those cold eyes rushed him again, but Baby moved to the side, frustrating him. When he turned back around, Baby attacked. He used a three-punch strike that sent the guy reeling, then crouched low and swept his leg out—a Tae Kwon Do move he didn’t use often but was glad to have in his rolodex of maneuvers.
Once the guy was on the ground, Baby finished the fight with a brutal uppercut to the jaw. “That’s for making me miss my date with an amazing woman.”
Baby had no idea if the guy could understand him or not, but it didn’t matter. He was out cold.
Baby sat back on the ground, breathing hard. He looked over at the house and found both Charlie and Anne there, Charlie holding a shotgun, and Anne with a Glock she looked very comfortable with.
“Just in case the party got out of hand,” Charlie said. “You okay?”
He nodded, immediately regretting it as pain rocketed through his skull. “We need to get this guy tied up. There are two others out of play about a quarter mile east.”
Charlie raised an eyebrow. “And a hole in my backyard.”
Baby restrained the guy with zip ties. “Sorry about that.”
Little Thomas’ cry floated outside. No doubt the huge noise had not pleased the newborn.
“Thank you, Baby.” Charlie kissed her fingers and held them out toward him before going inside for her son.
Cade’s voice came in through his earpiece. “It’s over. Zac took the terrorist out. Boy Riley and Girl Riley are both safe and will be on their way home soon.”
“Great.” He looked over at the damage the grenade had caused. “Have Blaze ask my brother how he feels about putting a pool in his backyard.”
Chapter Ten
“I told you not to come in today.” Lexi looked up from her paperwork and scowled at Quinn as she entered the Eagle’s Nest through the back door on Monday.
“I know, but I’m feeling much better. I didn’t want
to sit around at home and be bored.”
That was pretty much entirely untrue. Everything still hurt.
The cut on her head had required two stitches, so that wasn’t too bad. The way she had bled like a stuck pig, she would’ve thought half her face had been gouged out. The swelling had gone down so she could finally see out of her left eye, but it had turned impressive shades of purple and blue. But hey, at least it blended in with those dark circles under her eyes.
The emergency room bill would be as painful as her injuries. Her stomach dropped when she thought of the pricey monthly payments that would be necessary to settle the debt. She couldn’t afford it, she knew, but had no other option. She had no choice but to drag herself out of bed for this shift—she needed all the tips she could get.
Lexi came around from behind the bar so she could inspect Quinn’s face more closely. She grabbed Quinn’s chin and tilted it to the side so she could see her eye.
“I guess you don’t look too bad. You did a pretty decent job with the concealer. Most people go too heavy with the dark.” Lexi’s tone make it seem like she knew exactly what she was talking about.
“Uh, thanks, I think. I just used what I had.”
“I’m sure your makeup is as high-end as the rest of you.”
Quinn shrugged. Her cosmetics were definitely on the higher end of the spectrum, but they wouldn’t be for long.
“You sure you want to work?”
“I need to. The accident was an unexpected expense. I’m going to have to get my car towed to the garage and then still need to get it fixed.” God, more money she didn’t have. How much could she borrow before she found herself in a hole she might not be able to dig out from?
“Maybe Baby can cut you a deal to make up for missing your date.”
Quinn cringed. Oak Creek Auto had a much better reputation for being fair than the other shop in town, so his was the logical choice, unless she’d wanted to have her car towed all the way to Reddington City.
“It wasn’t a date,” Quinn said as she helped herself to a cup of coffee.