by Susan Stoker
Rayne shook her head. “Ghost said to stay put.”
Sadie ground her teeth in frustration and lifted her head enough so she could look through the window of the car they were hiding behind. She didn’t see anything unusual, and Chase was nowhere in sight. She turned back to Rayne and gestured toward the phone she was still clenching in her fist. Her fingers were white with the tension of her grip. “Ghost is coming?”
Rayne nodded.
For some reason, Sadie was more freaked out now than she’d been back at the school when Jonathan had pushed her down on the bed. Maybe it was because she didn’t know what was going on. Maybe it was because Chase could be in danger. She wasn’t sure. But she was sure she didn’t like the feeling. Not at all. She had no idea what had happened to the badass Sadie she’d been up in Dallas, but at the moment, she felt completely out of her league.
“Maybe we should go back into the store,” she finally suggested.
“No,” Rayne replied immediately. “Ghost said to stay put, so we’re staying put.”
She didn’t want to say it out loud, but she was wondering what would happen if whoever it was that Chase saw circled around and came at them from behind.
Suddenly knowing the person Chase saw was Jonathan, Sadie began to shake. She knew Jonathan was obsessed. She also knew she’d tricked him, and he was beyond pissed about it.
But crouching by that SUV in the middle of the day, wondering if Chase was all right, Sadie knew without a doubt, after he’d had his way with her, Jonathan was going to kill her. She’d wounded his ego. His male pride. And with the way he’d been raised by Jeremiah, he wasn’t going to just get over it. He’d need to prove that he was man enough to deal with her.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, but it seemed to be going by extremely slowly. She wished she had her small pink gun on her, but she’d stupidly left it back in the apartment over the garage. Sadie wanted Ghost there now. Hell, anyone who could help Chase would be super. For the first time, she understood a bit better what the men and women of McKay-Taggart did on a daily basis. How in the world the wives, and husbands, dealt with knowing their spouses were facing bad guys like this was beyond her. She hated the thought of Chase being in danger. Especially since it was because of her.
When she couldn’t take the waiting for another second, Sadie peered over the edge of the door once more, needing to see Chase. Needing to make sure he was all right.
As if her thoughts about Jonathan had conjured him out of thin air, she saw him crouched behind a car a row over from where Chase’s vehicle was parked.
She knew it was Jonathan because he turned his head and looked right at her.
She’d recognize his blond hair, pointed nose, and the hateful look in his icy blue eyes anywhere. Even across a parking lot.
He turned from her then and aimed his pistol.
Sadie looked in the direction he was facing and saw Chase cautiously moving between two cars near Jonathan. Her mouth was open and she was yelling at Chase before she even thought about what she was doing.
“Chase! Behind you! He’s behind that red car!”
He spun at the same time Jonathan pulled the trigger. The small-caliber pistol he held made a slight popping noise, which seemed somehow muffled in the busy public parking lot.
Her eyes glued to Chase, she held her breath until he took two giant steps and disappeared behind a Jeep. “Oh my God,” she said softly. Her eyes went back to where Jonathan had been hiding behind the car, but he was gone.
“Where’d he go?” she said, more to herself than Rayne.
“There he is,” Rayne said, pointing off to the side. “And Ghost is with him now.”
Sadie looked where her new friend was pointing and saw Chase huddled with Ghost. She hadn’t been asking about Chase, though. She’d been wondering where Jonathan had gone.
Before she could freak about it, Fletch materialized next to them.
“Come on,” he said, motioning toward an idling Highlander SUV nearby.
“Did Ghost call you?” Rayne asked.
Fletch looked at her as if she were insane. “Yeah, Rayne, he did. Now come on, we need to get out of here.”
“What about our groceries?” she asked. “It would suck to get Sadie all the way back home, only for her to realize she has to come back here to get something to eat.”
“Jonathan was by a red car,” Sadie told Fletch, ignoring Rayne’s asinine argument about the food. “Chase didn’t see him, and he got off a shot.”
“Ghost has his back,” Fletch reassured her.
Sadie looked around for Chase for a moment but no longer saw him. She turned to Fletch and nodded. “Okay.”
“He’s going to meet us at the house. I need to get you out of here, Sadie, in case Jonathan decides to go after you next.”
“Are the cops coming?” Rayne asked.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Fletch told her. “No one seemed to notice the gunshot. He probably has a silencer on his gun.”
“How’s that even possible?” Sadie asked, shaking her head. “I heard it.”
“You were looking right at him when he shot, right?” Fletch asked.
“Yeah.”
“You heard it because you were watching him. Even with all the mass shootings happening lately, people don’t expect something like that here in the middle of the day, in the middle of a Walmart parking lot. And even if they did hear it, they probably thought it was a car backfiring or something. Now come on, we have to get out of here.”
Fletch quickly led them over to the black SUV with tinted windows. Sadie struggled, suddenly not wanting to leave without making sure Chase was all right.
“Sadie, get in,” Fletch told her.
“I want to see Chase,” Sadie told him, putting out a hand to brace herself so she couldn’t be shoved into the backseat.
“He’s fine. Get in,” the man repeated.
“If Emily was shot at and you didn’t know if she was hurt or not, would you leave her to continue on with a mission? Even if I told you she was okay and in the hands of another guy like yourself?”
“Yes,” Fletch said immediately. “If she was with Chase or Ghost or any of my other friends, I’d trust them to get her the fuck away from the situation safely. Get in the damn car, Sadie.”
It finally sank in that she was being ridiculous. Not only that, she was putting Chase and Ghost in danger by hesitating. Possibly Rayne, Fletch, and herself too. Her uncles would kick her ass if she did the same thing to them in the middle of a dangerous situation.
Without another word, she ducked her head and climbed into the backseat.
While she’d been trying to convince Fletch to let her see Chase, Rayne had grabbed their groceries and thrown them into the SUV. Crazy woman.
The second Fletch was behind the wheel, he peeled out of the parking lot as if the hounds of hell were after them.
Rayne put her hand on Sadie’s leg in silent support as they sped through the city back to Fletch’s house.
Chapter Six
“What the fuck, Jackson?” Ghost asked once the truck had disappeared and they’d searched the parking lot thoroughly. Somehow Jonathan had managed to slip away once more. “You okay?”
Chase winced and tried to ignore the throbbing in his arm. He’d heard Sadie’s warning just in time and was able to avoid being hit in the chest. He’d thrown himself to the side, but not before being nailed in the arm instead of the heart. It hurt like a motherfucker, but that was much better than being dead.
“I’m good,” he told Ghost. He’d bleed for a while, but with the way his arm felt, he knew the bullet hadn’t torn through an artery or otherwise put him in a situation where he needed to go to the emergency room.
Ghost was professional enough not to second-guess him. He merely grunted and asked, “What happened?”
“We were headed to my car and I noticed someone lurking around it. I got the women stashed away and came over to check it out. All four t
ires are flat, and I haven’t looked under the hood, but I’m guessing it probably won’t start.”
“And your arm?”
“Jonathan was hiding like the pansy chickenshit he is. From the sound of it, he was using an M&P. Sadie gave me enough of a head’s up that he didn’t put a bullet in my fucking chest.”
“You sure it was him?”
“Yeah. I didn’t get a good look, but that’s what I’m assuming.”
“You telling her uncle?” Ghost asked.
Chase nodded. “It’s been a while since that second time he slipped away from the school, and we’d hoped the recent sighting of him was mistaken identity. That maybe this time, he really had gotten the fuck out of Texas. But it looks like our original fears about him coming after Sadie are true.”
“What the fuck happened to make him so determined to get to her?”
That was the million-dollar question. And it had to be more than his sick plan to impregnate her so he could abuse his own children. That was bad enough… But the obsession Jonathan had for Sadie was extreme.
And Chase would be finding out tonight every detail about Sadie’s time alone with him, no matter how reluctant she was to talk about it. He couldn’t keep her safe if she didn’t tell him what they were up against.
“I don’t know,” Chase admitted. “Sadie doesn’t want to talk about it. Has barely admitted that something more happened than what she’d already told the Feds. Acts like she’s ashamed.”
Taking another look around, Ghost motioned toward his black Crown Victoria. They quickly walked toward the car. Once they were inside, Ghost started it up and headed out of the parking lot toward Fletch’s place. “I don’t give a shit what she did or said,” Ghost growled in a low, deadly tone. “Those assholes were perverted and insane. They fucked up so many kids’ lives. I don’t know what happened that day Jonathan’s father was killed, but I do know that Sadie has nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Agreed.”
“But here’s the question,” Ghost went on. “If she tells you that she slept with the man before you showed up…you gonna lose your shit?”
Chase opened his mouth—and nothing came out. He licked his lips then finally said, “I wasn’t there. I didn’t have to hear him talk about abusing little girls. I wasn’t trying to keep my friend and her son safe until help showed up. Help she had no idea was going to show up. So no, if she tells me that she didn’t fight as that asshole raped her, I’m not going to lose my shit. I’ll continue to tell her that she has nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You want her.” It wasn’t a question.
“I want her,” Chase agreed immediately. “And she’ll be mine. Fuck, she already feels like mine and we haven’t even kissed yet. I’ve had some time to think about our relationship, and I can tell you unequivocally that I would do anything to have her by my side.”
“Give up your Army career?” Ghost asked.
Chase huffed out a breath. “Wow, don’t beat around the bush, Ghost. Go right for the jugular.”
“I’ll tell you this,” Ghost said quietly. “If it was a matter of my career or Rayne, I’d choose your sister every time.”
Chase knew that the man sitting next to him loved his sister. Hell, it was more than obvious. But Chase also knew how much Ghost loved the Army. Loved being a Delta Force member. For him to say he’d give it up was big. Huge.
But then he thought about Sadie. About giving her up and about the possibility of her loving another man, starting a family with him, and his stomach clenched. “Yeah,” he said, conviction in every word. “I’d give up my career for her.”
Ghost clamped him on the shoulder as they drove. “Welcome to being pussy whipped. I wouldn’t change it for all the money in the world.”
The men grinned at each other. Slowly, Chase’s smile died. “I need to call Sean Taggart.”
“Don’t envy you, man,” Ghost said.
Chase grimaced. “Might as well get it over with.” He gently pulled his phone out of his pocket, being careful not to jostle his arm, and pressed a few buttons on the phone.
“Taggart.”
“Sean. It’s Chase Jackson.”
“What’s up?”
Chase took a deep breath and didn’t beat around the bush, figuring Sean wouldn’t appreciate it. “Looks like Jonathan is going to be a problem after all, and it’s a good thing I’m looking after Sadie.”
“What happened?” Sean’s voice changed from the casual, laid-back tone he’d had just a moment ago to that of the no-nonsense, ready-to-take-action former Green Beret that he was.
“Shots fired in a public parking lot.”
“Fuck. At Sadie?”
“No. Me. I got her out of the way when I saw someone lurking around my car. While I was tracking him down, the fucker took a shot at me. If it hadn’t been for Sadie warning me, he might’ve succeeded in taking me out. He wants to get his hands on her. Bad.”
“If one hair on her head is hurt, he’s gonna wish he’d never fucked with a Taggart.”
She wasn’t a Taggart, but Chase knew what Sean meant. His wife was Sadie’s mom’s sister. And since Sean loved his wife more than anything, and Grace loved her niece, anyone who threatened Sadie, basically threatened his wife. And one thing Chase had learned from his research into the McKay-Taggart group, no one fucked with what was theirs. He was beginning to appreciate the sentiment.
“You catch the asshole?”
“No. Just like at the school, he disappeared like smoke.”
“Where is Sadie now?”
“She’s on her way to Fletch’s house.” Sean knew who Fletch was. He knew who all the Delta Force men were. He and his brother had researched everyone Sadie had any contact with down in San Antonio. He’d first found out as much as he could about TJ and Milena, and had learned TJ had done a favor for the Delta Force team in the past. And because Sean wasn’t one to let loose strings hang, he’d gone on to research Ghost and the others on the team. If he had found anything he didn’t like, Chase knew full well Sadie wouldn’t still be with him. Sean would’ve forced her back up to Dallas no matter what she or Chase wanted.
“You’re not with her?”
Not liking the accusation in Sean’s tone, Chase said tersely, “No. She’s with Fletch. He took her and Rayne back to the house so we could search the parking lot. Fucker clipped my arm. I wasn’t sure if the cops were called or not, and didn’t want her anywhere near here in case a report was made. Wanted to keep her out of it.”
“Clipped?” Sean asked.
“Yeah.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment. Just when Chase didn’t think Sean was going to say anything else, or thought maybe he’d hung up, he said, “You like my niece.”
Fuck. This again. But Chase would reassure whoever the fuck he had to about his feelings for Sadie. “I do.”
“You took a bullet for her.”
“I did, and I’d do it again.”
“We researched you, you know,” Sean informed him quietly.
“I didn’t think you’d let Sadie stay with me if you hadn’t.” Chase didn’t know where the other man was going with this conversation, but he wasn’t prepared for his next words.
“I know about what happened with the Delta Force team you were imbedded with over in the Middle East.”
Chase was stunned into silence. He knew? How in the hell did Sean find out about that?
“Jackson?” Ghost asked from next to him, obviously picking up on his nonverbal body language.
Chase waved his hand at Ghost, letting him know he was all right.
Sean Taggart went on. “I’m sorry that shit happened to you, but I have a feeling it made you a better soldier.”
Chase didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing as the other man continued.
“All I’m asking is that you treat Sadie right. Being married to a military man is never easy, but someone like you, who isn’t exactly Special Forces but st
ill works with the worst of the worst, and could still be targeted by terrorists, doesn’t exactly have a life filled with sunshine and roses. But I know my niece. She’s tough. And loyal. Very loyal. Look at what happened with Milena. Even when the shit hit the fan with the school, she didn’t leave. She stayed to help and offer moral support. And instead of saving her own ass when things went to shit after they were snatched, she did what she could to help Milena. All I’m saying is that I’m glad she found a man like you.”
Chase’s chin fell to his chest in relief. It wasn’t that he needed Sean’s approval, but he sure was glad he had it. “Thanks. Means a lot.”
“But if you hurt her, there’s nowhere on this planet you can hide from me or my brothers,” Sean concluded.
Chase couldn’t help it. He chuckled. That was what he’d expected Sean to say when he claimed Sadie as his. “Right. Glad we got that out of the way.”
“You need an extra set of eyes or ears?”
Chase wanted to say no, but when it came to protecting Sadie, he’d never turn down a former Special Forces soldier. “If you’ve got someone, it would help.”
“Me and Ian’ll be down tomorrow.”
Chase blinked. He’d sorta expected Sean to send one of the younger members of the McKay-Taggart group. Or even one of the unattached men. But when he thought about it, he wasn’t surprised. If it was Rayne who was in trouble, or one of her children, he wouldn’t trust anyone else to keep her safe. “We’ll be at Fletch’s. We’re having a small get-together tonight. We were going to barbeque outside, but now we’ll keep everyone hunkered down inside.”
“Jonathan won’t try to burn the place down with all you in it, will he? You don’t want to make it easier for him to take you all out.”
Chase had thought about that too. “If you want my opinion, whatever happened inside that room has made him even more focused on Sadie. Yeah, he’s not happy with me. Enough to fucking try to kill me instead of Sadie, but I really don’t think anyone else is in danger. He’s a coward at heart. Showing up and confronting more than just Sadie isn’t his style. When the shit hit the fan at the school, he and his father ran. I’m fairly certain he’ll wait and try to ambush me and steal Sadie when we least expect it. Just like he did at that nightclub when he got his hands on Milena and Sadie.”