Brantley nodded.
“Why?”
RT frowned, plowing right over Z’s question. “There for her how?”
Preferring to answer the second question, Brantley shrugged as he focused on the phone in his hand. He pulled up Madison’s number, dialed.
“Max is a mob boss,” Z noted. “There’s no tellin’ who might be after her. I’m sure he’s got a long list of enemies.”
“It went to voicemail,” Brantley said, ending the call without leaving a message.
“I’ll call Max,” RT stated, strolling out of the waiting room and into the main hall.
RT disappeared around the corner, phone to his ear, leaving Brantley there to pace, running a hand over his hair. Now that Reese was awake, all the pain and frustration from last night returned.
“Hey.” A firm hand landed on his shoulder. “I know Reese’ll have a damn good explanation for this.”
Brantley looked into Z’s eyes, held his gaze. “I’m not sure he does.”
“You two havin’ problems?”
He hadn’t thought they were. Hell, for the past six months, ever since Juliet Prince had been dealt with and they’d started working for Sniper 1 Security, Brantley’d thought they were settling into a nice routine together. Never in his life would he have imagined Reese to be chatting it up with his ex-girlfriend, much less going on dates with her.
“Give him a chance to explain,” Z said firmly.
Brantley nodded because it was the right thing to do, not because he was in agreement.
“Any chance you’ve given the rest of the team a call?”
Brantley’s gaze slammed into Z’s.
Ah, hell.
*
Baz answered his phone on the first ring.
“Hey, boss man. What’s up?”
“Reese is in the hospital. ICU. Here in Dallas. He was shot last night. He’s awake and alert now, but I don’t have any updates on his condition.”
Because Brantley was speaking so fast, his voice low, it took a second for Baz to process the information.
Baz glanced over at where JJ was asleep on the other side of the king-sized bed. “Holy shit.”
“I’ll be up here for a while, but y’all are welcome to head back to Coyote Ridge whenever you’re ready.”
He didn’t bother telling Brantley to fuck the hell off. Seriously? He thought they would simply pack it up and go home while Reese was in the hospital? Clearly something was off with Brantley to even suggest it.
Since he wasn’t sure what Brantley’d been through, he opted to keep his cool. “We’ll load up and head up there.”
“You mind clearin’ out our room, too? I’ll call the front desk, tell ’em to give you a key.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Be sure to grab the guns in the safe.”
“Will do.”
“The code—”
Baz interrupted him. “I’ll get it from JJ.”
When the call disconnected, Baz stared at his phone for a second.
“Who was that?” JJ grumbled, rolling over so she was facing him, her eyes still closed.
She looked so good like that. Sleepy and tousled. In his bed.
“Brantley. Reese was shot last night.”
Her eyes snapped open, but she didn’t immediately sit up. “What?”
He nodded, assuring her she’d heard him correctly. “He didn’t give me details, but he did say Reese is awake and alert and stable.”
Her exhale was so loud he wouldn’t be surprised if their neighbor heard it.
“Why the hell didn’t he call last night?” she bit out, sitting up and brushing her long hair back from her face.
Baz fought the urge to stare at her. He’d always been spellbound by this woman, and seeing her first thing in the morning was something he doubted he would ever get used to even if they spent the next eighty years together.
Tesha, who was asleep at the foot of the bed, rolled onto her back, clearly not ready for the day to start.
Figuring her question was rhetorical, Baz told JJ to get ready while he called Trey. He relayed the brief details Brantley had offered, then told Trey he would meet him at the hospital in a little while.
It didn’t take long to pack up what few things he’d brought with him. When JJ was out of the shower, Baz got the combination from her, then left her to finish up while he took Tesha out to do her business. On his way back in, he stopped in the lobby to get a key card from the front desk.
When he walked into Brantley and Reese’s room, the first thing he noticed was that Brantley’s things were gone. He recognized a couple of Reese’s T-shirts, which was how he deduced that the remaining items belonged solely to Reese.
What the hell had happened last night? He knew Brantley hadn’t come back to the hotel to pack up his things after Reese was shot. He wouldn’t have done it without clearing out Reese’s, too.
Using the passcode, he unlocked the safe, found both of their Sigs tucked inside, both cased and unloaded.
Neither of them had been armed last night? He found that strange since they’d all taken to carrying all the time after what they’d been through in recent months. And since they were on duty twenty-four/seven, they needed to be ready at a moment’s notice.
“Tesha, I think there might be trouble in paradise,” he told the dog as he gave the room one final look to ensure he’d gotten everything.
Back in his and JJ’s room, he found her drying her hair, but all of her things had already been packed. She was efficient like that, something he found both amusing and immensely attractive. Hell, everything about the woman turned him on, and he vowed that he would ensure she knew it from that moment on. Baz would not take anything for granted, especially when it came to JJ.
The blow-dryer turned off, and JJ turned to look at him as she ran her brush through her hair one final time.
“You ’bout ready?” she asked.
“Yeah. I got their stuff cleared out. I’ll start loadin’ it up if you wanna finish up in here.”
“Will do.”
Baz hefted a few bags onto his shoulders and headed for the elevator. When he was stepping inside, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Without looking at it, he sighed. It was eight o’clock, so he knew who it was. This was about the time that the text messages started every single day. Molly would begin by wishing him a good morning with half a dozen emoticons that made absolutely no sense to him.
However, there was no longer any reason for Molly to be communicating with him. Baz wanted nothing to do with her. It was enough to know that the baby wasn’t his, something that actually caused a pain in his chest. Although the situation hadn’t been ideal by any means, Baz couldn’t deny he’d been excited about becoming a father. At thirty-two, he was more than ready to start a family.
On his terms, of course. The fact that Molly had fucked with his life for the past nine months eliminated the ache and replaced it with fury. She had lied to him.
Huffing his frustration, Baz exited the elevator, strolled through the empty lobby area, and out into the humid, warm morning. The sun was high in the sky already, guaranteeing a scorcher of a day. After piling their bags into the bed of Trey’s truck, he pulled out his phone to read the text message.