Page 97 of Dangerous Mission
Silence hangs between us.
“Thank you for trusting me with that. But I shouldn’t have said things that would make you want to…”
“Go after the bastard?”
“Yeah, that.”
He reaches across the table and his hand circles my wrist. The heat of his touch scores my cold skin. As he gently rubs a circle with his thumb over my scar, he speaks. “Never regret being open with me. I know what you gave me.”
I sip the tea, praying for relief from this awful clawing sensation in my throat. But if I’m honest with myself it doesn’t stop there. It spirals out to my arms and twists around the scars on my wrists where I carry the horrible reminders of all the mistakes I made.
“These scars can’t become symbols for more destruction.”
He drops his gaze to the table and a ripple of angry energy pulses off of him. As his jaw flexes, he lifts my mug of tea. As Scout takes a drink, he watches me over the edge.
It feels incredibly intimate. Some kind of statement I can’t explain.
“He needs to be stopped. A man that does that once will do it again.”
I never thought of that.
My stomach dips, my nape tingles. The narrow scar around my wrist throbs beneath his hold. “I’m scared.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“No,Scout.”
I didn’t mean to tell him about the connection to the feds. Or any other clue that could give away who I’m talking about because I know men like Scout and Griff are deadly. They don’t move around under the same code of ethics and laws as everyone else.
He stands up and walks into the bedroom. When he comes back he’s dressed in his black cargos and the tight-fitting gray T-shirt he had on earlier. He’s putting his pistol into the holster at the small of his back when he takes up a wide legged stance in the kitchen. “Rest. I’m going to make some calls and look over the dive gear.”
Stiff with fear, I clutch the mug so hard I wonder if it will crack. “Are you making calls about what I told you?”
He doesn’t reply to that question. Instead he says, “I’ll be right outside. You're safe.”
His expression is so hard and so unreadable that it drives the air out of my lungs, leaving me dizzy. “Please don’t involve Griff.”
“Your brother would go to war for you, sweetheart.”
“It’s too much. I can’t take it. I already worry about him constantly. Worrying about my shitty ex doing something to him would be too much. And you…”
He looks at me with such intensity, my world starts to spin.
Brokenly, I say, “Scout, it would crush me if something bad happened to you. Please don’t do that to me.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
How am I supposed to handle a statement like that?
Doing what I shouldn’t, I clamp my mouth shut and I walk out.
Fuck.What am I going to do?
I drag my phone out of my cargo pocket and dial Griffon Kane. It rings at least a dozen times and goes to voicemail as I tug open the truck and pull the dive bags out.
“Griff, it’s Scout. Call me now.” I glance at my watch. “It’s fifteen-twenty six.”
When I hit the end button, I prop my phone on the tailgate and start working my way through all the dive gear with a fine tooth comb.