Page 18 of The Veteran

“Great.”

Sean glanced at me inquisitively.

“Hi.” I offered him a hand and a smile. “I’m Sage.”

Sean grinned, his teeth bright against his dark skin. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sage. We’ll keep you safe.”

My guts rolled sickeningly. I didn’t want this friendly man putting himself between me and danger. My life had no more value than his. Or Kade’s. But he looked so eager to reassure me that I forced myself to nod. “Thank you.”

“I’ll show you inside.” We followed him into the cottage and he gave us a tour. It had a simple layout, with the front door opening onto a hall with one bedroom to either side, a bathroom beside the smaller bedroom, and a living room at the end of the hall, with a kitchen through a side door. The place looked like nobody had ever lived there, with stark white walls and only a few items of furniture. If not for the shopping bags on the kitchen counter, I suspected there would be no food or toiletries anywhere.

I shivered. Not only did it feel like nobody had lived here before, but like nobody should live here. It was a strange thing to think about an innocuous cottage, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

“I don’t like it,” I murmured to Kade. “It feels cold.”

He slipped a comforting arm around my shoulders. “We won’t stay long. I’ll arrange something else. But for the moment, this is our best option.”

Meaning we were stuck with it. I bit my lip. Perhaps I was being too sensitive. It wasn’t as though I’d never been accused of that before.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Especially after I’d burned some sage and lit some candles.

KADE

Once Sage and I were settled in the cottage and Sean had returned to his post outside, I sat on the sofa and called Joanna.

“Has King told you the latest?” I asked.

“You mean how they tracked you down?” She sounded distracted, but I wasn’t surprised. A prison break was a lot to deal with, and the two convicts we were hiding from weren’t even half the number that had escaped.

“That’s right. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of their movements.”

“It’s good to have confirmation,” she said. “Our uniforms are searching the area but they haven’t had any luck so far.”

“Let me know if that changes, and I’ll call you if we learn anything else.”

“Great, thanks.”

I ended the conversation and pocketed my phone. Sage was still in the bedroom she’d claimed, and I couldn’t decide whether to give her space or check to make sure she was okay. This whole day had been a shitshow and I could hardly believe we’d ended up here. I thought back to Grant and the way I’d dismissed him earlier, and grimaced. Hopefully I hadn’t created any bad feelings that would affect the rest of the team. My guys needed to know I trusted them, and for the most part, I did. But I wouldn’t take any chances when it came to Sage’s safety. After all, I had firsthand experience with what could happen when you trusted someone to do something and they let you down. People could die. People in my life had died for that very reason.

I waited a few minutes, then paced up the hall and peered through the small gap between the door and the doorframe. Sage sat cross-legged on the ground, her hands resting on her knees, eyes closed. I backed away and made myself a coffee. A while later, she emerged from the bedroom, her eyes brighter than they’d been earlier and her serene smile back in place.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She stretched her hands above her head, exposing a slice of her abdomen as her tank top rode up. “I needed that.”

I just nodded. I wasn’t sure exactly what she’d been up to, but it worked for her and that was all that mattered. I assumed she’d make a hot drink, but instead, she flopped onto the sofa.

“So, what now?”

I glanced at the clock. There were still plenty of hours in the day. “Would you like to learn some self-defense?”

“I already know a lot of self-defense,” she reminded me.

“You can never know too much.” I drained my coffee mug and placed it on the table. I was afraid she might be overconfident in her abilities, and if that was the case, it would be better to know it now than find out later.

I beckoned for her to come at me.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to hurt you.”