Two large black vehicles roared past, and Drago shot out the rear window of the last one for good measure. Gunner grinned and hoisted his guy to his feet, giving him a little shove along the ridge toward where it dipped down to street level.
“I’m coming up on your left, Gun,” Spencer transmitted over the radio.
“Roger.”
Spencer’s dark shape materialized beside him, and the shoulders of the bound hostile drooped. He’d been planning an escape attempt, had he? Too bad, so sad.
“Take this one down to the room?” Gunner asked Spencer.
“Good a place as any for a conversation.”
They marched the guy down the hill and met Drago coming across the road. Gunner unlocked the motel room door and ushered the prisoner inside. “You two have a chat with this guy. I have a little cleanup to do, and I need to retrieve Chas.”
“Why don’t you pack up the baby’s gear, and when you’ve collected them, go ahead and hit the road,” Spencer said quietly.
“Good idea. For the record, I put the sixth hostile in a throat lock, and he flipped me. I kept my grip and he tried to twist sideways out of it. Snapped his neck before I could let go. He died immediately. I swear I didn’t kill him intentionally.”
“I know you better than that, Gunner. You don’t lose control in a fight. Hell, I wouldn’t offer you a job unless you were a complete professional.”
“Thanks,” he replied gruffly.
Spencer nodded. “Photograph the corpse, police the area for any evidence that would lead back to you, and leave him. He’s their problem to deal with… assuming they don’t leave their own behind. Then you guys get out of here. We’ll deal with this gentleman.”
Drago had already hog-tied the prisoner with ropes he couldn’t possibly wiggle in, let alone escape from.
Gunner nodded and quickly packed his and Chas’s stuff and stowed it in the car. He came back for Poppy’s stuff and efficiently tucked her gear into the baby bag and slung its cloth strap over his shoulder.
“That’s a good look on you,” Drago commented.
Gunner looked up, startled. The guy didn’t sound like he was being sarcastic, and a genuine smile lit Drago’s face.
“If they made these things in camo cloth, I’d like them better. The pink is a little loud for my taste,” he replied wryly.
Spencer and Drago grinned as he ducked outside for the last time.
Gunner was just closing up the car when the motel manager came outside, looking suspicious. The guy demanded, “I heard noise out here. You boys causing trouble?”
“No, sir. I thought I heard some folks hunting in the woods, though. Gunshots woke me up. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided I’d go ahead and pack the car so we can get an early start in the morning.”
“Don’t forget to turn in the key when you check out,” the guy grumbled.
“You bet. Good night, now.”
The manager wandered back inside, and Gunner sighed in relief. He jogged around the end of the motel and headed up the hillside toward where he’d stashed Chas. Poor guy must be losing his mind after hearing all that gunfire.
It had been a hell of a night. First the emotional roller coaster of epic sex with Chas, and then a hunt in the woods and the unexpected shock of killing a guy. Even if it was the dead man’s fault and a total accident, it was still stressful.
He could really use a hug from Chas right about now.
Which shocked the ever-loving hell out of him.
Chapter Fifteen
IT WAS official. He’d had a full nervous breakdown. Lying under this stupid boulder had not only chilled him to the bone but stretched his nerves until they’d totally snapped. Every noise made him jump, every rustle of breeze rattling through the branches sent him into a new panic.
His cell phone said he’d only been out here about a half hour, but it felt like several lifetimes. How in the heck did Gunner stand living with this kind of tension all the time? How was the guy not a complete wreck? A whole new level of respect for Gunner’s training and guts came over him. He’d had no idea how rough a job this was.
As the clock continued to tick, he had way too much time to reflect on Gunner’s chosen profession. The guy did this all the time. This was a normal workday for him. Hunting other human beings was his career.
Chas despised that with every fiber in his being.
It couldn’t possibly be good for Gunner to live as a killer, to think as a killer, to be a killer. How did any human soul walk away unscathed from the knowledge that they’d taken the lives of others?
He had to find a way to talk Gunner out of doing work like this anymore—while Gunner still had a little soul left to save. Urgency to get him to quit the security field and find something, anything, less violent to do raged through him.
As soon as they made it off this hillside—if they made it off this hillside—he was going to have a talk with Gunner about it. While he waited to find out if they even got to have the conversation, he began to figure out his plan of attack.
Something was moving on the hillside below him. Oh God. It was big and dark. A person. He froze, feeling more trapped and exposed and vulnerable than he ever had in his life. It was awful. He was going to die and he was never going to get to tell Gunner he lov—
He spied the face of his killer.
Gunner.
Oh, thank God.
As Gunner’s familiar form neared the big boulder and bent down to pull back the camo tarp, Chas burst out of the hidey-hole, rolled clear of the overhang, gained his feet, and practically leaped on Gunner.
“Sweet baby Jesus. I was sure you’d been killed when you didn’t come back for me,” Chas murmured against his neck.
“It just took a while to clear the area. I’m fine.”
Gunner squeezed the stuffing out of Chas, and right now, he loved feeling those big, strong arms around him better than just about anything else on earth. “You sure you’re okay?” Chas asked. “I heard gunfire. A lot of it. I thought you were dead—”
A warm mouth pressed firmly against his, stilling the stored-up babble of terror that had come spilling out. Distracted by the kiss, he fell silent, kissing Gunner back enthusiastically.
“Better?” Gunner murmured when the worst of his panic had subsided.
“Yeah,” he sighed. Lord, he was a mess. “Are you okay?” He took a small step back and commenced running his hands up and down Gunner’s arms, across his shoulders, down his ribs.
“Really, Chas, I’m fine. But I do need you to stay here a couple more minutes while I take care of one last piece of business. Then I’ll be ready to head out.”
And just like that, the panic roared back. “Oh no, you don’t. You’re not leaving me alone again!”
“I would really rather you stayed here.”
“No. Effing. Way.”
Gunner huffed. “I have to go photograph and search a body. You don’t want to see that.”
“A dead—” Chas broke off, too shocked to finish. Oh God. It was as bad as he’d feared. Gunner was standing there, talking as calmly about death as if they were discussing the weather. “What on earth happened out here?”