Page 79 of Knox
But with his words, her chest began to slowly release, and for the first time in what seemed like years, she exhaled.
It was all Tate could do not to grab Glo, drag her away from the crowd in the great room of Benjamin King’s palatial home, and…and…
Shoot, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Strangle her, yes, for taking off from the ranch. And crush her to himself, breathing out with a hard gust of painful relief that she was okay. And then there was the other thing, the one action he kept flogging into submission…the nearly overpowering desire to pull her into his arms and kiss her. Taste and take captive those pretty lips, maybe see them curl into a smile, her eyes warming as she tucked herself into his embrace.
Tate could admit it wasn’t necessarily professional behavior, and it was that truth, along with trying to keep Knox from picking Kelsey up and throwing her over his shoulder in his insistence they hightail it back to the Marshall Triple M pronto, that kept him from pulling Glo aside.
From…well, yeah. All of it.
Instead he’d listened to the account of the events, again, filing the information away, then sided with Knox when he practically dragged the ladies from King’s ranch and into the rental car.
Tate didn’t love the idea of Russell following them back to the ranch before he could set up a security system, but Knox had it stuck in his craw that they’d be safer on home territory.
And maybe he was right—at least about feeling better with the ladies on familiar ground—because when they stopped by the charred bus with Sam, the local cop, on the way out of town, Tate wanted to hit something.
He stood in the parking lot, his legs soft as he stared at the crumpled shell. A couple arson investigators were gloved up and inspecting burn patterns, but all Tate could think was…What if?
What if Glo had been asleep inside?
What if Tate had been here—would he have seen the bomber? Or caught the fire?
What if they’d never left the ranch?
And the zinger—what if he hadn’t happened upon Glo that night outside the arena three weeks ago, landed this gig, and found his heart being slowly sucked out his chest?
How was it possible that he’d come back around to this helpless, frustrated ache of watching someone he cared about being threatened, without having the first clue where the danger might come from?
Please, God,he couldn’t watch someone he cared about die again. Not when he was supposed to be keeping them safe.
That thought dug claws into his chest and burned the entire drive back to the ranch. And through the late dinner, as Ma fussed over the girls. They’d received some clothing from the rescue team in Mercy Falls, but his mother had purchased some toiletries, pajamas, and socks, and seeing the supplies in bags on the counter made him realize just how much the fire had consumed.
Not unlike how he’d left Vegas, with just the clothes on his back, thankful to be alive.
Ma pampered them with more homemade cookies, her answer to the perils of life, and Glo had disappeared to take a bath or something.
She’d asked him, once, where he’d gone, and he’d looked at Knox for permission to spill the truth. But a quick shake of his head suggested that Knox wanted to keep that field trip report for later.
Much later, when they found Russell. When the girls didn’t have to panic about one missing criminal.
He’d offered to do the dishes, too much turmoil in his gut to do anything but prowl around the house. Darkness pressed inside, thick with night sounds—cicadas on the lawn—and a cool breeze filtered in through the open windows.
He finished the dishes, stood on the back porch for a while until the bugs began to gnaw at him. Finally came back to the kitchen, sitting in the darkness, listening to the sound of the dishwasher humming, his body still buzzing with the events of the past twenty-four hours. Their red-eye flight to Minneapolis, then Kalispell, then the drive to Mercy Falls, then back to the airport for the hop to Helena to pick up their truck. Thankfully, the ladies had had their identification with them backstage.
He buried his head on his arms. From the den, the television hummed, evidence that Knox and Kelsey might be resuming their nightly hockey game addiction.
Although, one look at Knox tonight said hockey was the last thing on his mind.
He’d been Thor, man of thunder, all day.
Probably he was doing battle with his impulses too.
Tate glanced up, to the darkness of the second story. Silent.
Put his head back in his arms. Blew out a breath. Okay, so he just needed to get a hand around his emotions, keep them from blowing up, destroying this gig he’d started to really like.
Footsteps on the stairs, and the third step groaned. He lifted his head.
He sat in the darkness, behind the table, nothing of moonlight on him, but made out pretty clearly Glo’s outline as she tiptoed into the kitchen. Fumbled at the cupboard for a glass. Filled it with water.