Tasha shook her head. “No, thanks, I’m good.”
Thomas closed the bathroom door behind him, thinking, shit. He’d leaned hard on that friends, but was that for her benefit—or for his?
Chapter Sixteen
As Rio and Dave approached, the little rural airfield’s runway lights powered up.
“I’m hoping that’s a signal that their tower’s had contact from the prince’s jet,” Dave said optimistically. “If he lands soon...”
If he landed in the next five minutes, it would only take seven hours and five minutes to make the round trip to Burlington, Vermont. Seven hours and five minutes before they returned to their primary mission of finding Tasha and Thomas.
Assuming the prince wasn’t packing any bullshit in his carry-on. Assuming he landed without mishap and willingly gave himself up, cheerfully climbed into the backseat of their SUV, and enthusiastically let himself be delivered to Vermont without any pushback.
Yeah.
Right.
What was the protocol for strong-arming a prince?
Dave was waiting for some kind of response, so Rio managed to make a noncommittal-sounding grunt as he navigated around one of the larger potholes in the airfield parking lot. There were five other vehicles—four pickups and a patrol car—already there, and he could see at least as many people gathered in the small, open-air hangar. Just the sight of them pissed him off. God help them if they questioned his authority or otherwise slowed them down in the slightest.
But that wasn’t the only reason they pissed him off.
“You’re from a small town, right?” he asked Dave as he killed the engine.
“Yeah, sort of,” Dave said, climbing out of the SUV and stretching. “Damn, it’s cold. I mean, North Port’s lots smaller than Sarasota. But even Sarasota’s not very big, so... I’ll go with yes. Why?”
“My small-town radar sucks.” Rio opened the back, and unlocked the weapons locker. Time for a little concealed carry—that he wouldn’t bother to fully conceal. He slipped on the nylon shoulder holster, then covered it with a jacket but didn’t zip up. “I walk into a place like this, you know, population seven-hundred-and-something—that’s like half the size of my high school graduating class—and I assume everybody in town must know everybody else. Like, there’s probably someone in that hangar, right now, who directly knows someone who’s on the payroll of the asshole who torched the Ustanzian ski lodge.”
Dave nodded as he grabbed some extra ammo. “That’s a healthy assumption,” he agreed.
Which meant that thanks to the impetuous and spoiled prince, they’d not only just lost a shitload of time, they’d also just given up the element of surprise.
Perfect.
Rio locked everything back up, double-checking that it was secure.
“Ooh, maybe the airport has working WiFi!” Dave already had his phone out as he searched for a connection. But his enthusiasm immediately faded. “Damn it.”
And now Jon-without-an-H, who still hadn’t texted Dave any response whatsoever, was pissing Rio off nearly as much as Little Prince Motherfuckin’ Tedric was.
“Let’s get this over with,” Rio said, leading the way toward the hangar.
Thomas had bludgeoned her with a friend-and-run.
I’m glad we’re fffrrriennndddsss again, Tash, gotta take a shower, k, thanx, bye!
This was definitely her cue to take her book and vanish into the bedroom, so they didn’t have to sing verse nine-hundred-and-twelve of the Awkward Song after his shower.
He’d failed to take the pink sweatshirt in with him, so when he did come out of the bathroom, he’d be not just freshly scrubbed and sweet-smelling, he’d have all those powerful Navy SEAL chest and back and shoulder and arm muscles on full display. And that, combined with his thin flannel pants with their draw-string waist worn low on his hips...
Thomas had referred to them as clown-pants, but nuh-uh.
Nope.
She was the only clown in this rodeo.
And while Tash told herself she was sticking around merely to apply more antibiotic ointment onto the back of Thomas’s head, she was lying.
Except when he finally came out of the bathroom, he’d wrapped himself in the red robe that she’d hung on the back of the door. He’d always looked good in rich colors, but this robe was...
It was an equally fantasy-inducing costume, but the plotline had a decidedly different essence than shirtless-from-the-shower. It was a different flavor of delicious.
He didn’t seem surprised to see her still sitting on the sofa with her book, but then again, he had a truly great poker face. It was only when he spoke that she could tell if he was lying or telling the truth.
“I hung my pants up to dry in the bathroom,” he told her, no doubt feeling a need to explain why his legs were bare beneath that decadent-looking robe. On him, it wasn’t floor length. On him, the robe ended mid-powerful-looking-calf. He hadn’t bothered putting on the slippers and his feet were bare, too.
“That’s okay,” she said. “We’re safe. I’ve got my jeans on under here.”
He gave her his Really? You went there? face, so she gestured to the coffee table, where she’d already laid out the first-aid kit.
“It’s time to play our daily round of Prevent! That! Infection!” she told him. “It’s your turn. I’ve already changed my bandage—Melvin is healing very nicely.”
“Next time, wait before you bandage it back up. I want to see. You also might want to start leaving it open to the air.”
“Got it,” she told him, setting down her book as she stood up, heading into the kitchen to wash her hands. “Sit there, and oh, have a beer.” She raised her voice to talk over the water running. “I figured this was a good time for you to drink some calories. I mean, compared to having a beer with your breakfast, before you go back out to check for messages from Uncle Alan...?”
“Good guess,” he called back. “You’re not having one?”
As she came back in, drying her hands on a towel, he took a swig, then reached for the peanut jar that was his—marked with a K-for-King. It was still half-full, while hers—marked with an F-for-Francisco—was nearly empty. Of course, he’d been out for all that time while she’d been sitting here, hungry and anxiety-eating.
“I opted for a glass of liquid grapes a couple hours ago—a very nice red blend that paired wonderfully with peanuts,” she told him. “Here, lean forward a little.”
He complied, and she surveyed his injury. It was slightly swollen and no doubt still badly bruised and tender to the touch, but the scrape was, like Melvin, healing nicely. Still, a little antibiotic goop couldn’t hurt. She dolloped some into her palm, handing the open tube to him to close, and began to gently dab.
“Since we’ve already discussed Ted and his various failings, whatever happened to Rachel?” she asked.
Thomas laughed his surprise. “Rachel?”
“Yeah. Dark brown hair, cool glasses, from New York? She was in San Diego during the summer, for some kind of... tech internship, I think it was...?”
“Oh, I remember Rachel,” he told her. “She had a paid internship for a work-study program at SolarCal. She was in an advanced engineering program at RIT—Rochester Institute of Technology.”