“Is there a television in my room?”
“Uh, I’m afraid not,” Noah said. “But I’ll remedy that soon.”
Aunt Maggie reached into the giant tote bag she’d set on the floor and pulled out an enormous iPad. “That’s all right, honey. Do you have Wi-Fi?”
“I do. Yes. You can use your email, but please don’t tell anyone the details of where you are. I have a VPN on the network, so your location won’t show. But if you tell someone where you’ve gone, it’ll make you and Jenna easier to find. I cannot emphasize that enough.”
“No details. I understand. Truly, I only need to communicate with the reverend and his wife—and maybe one or two others—about the bake sale. I would like to watch Netflix, though.”
“You have a Netflix account?” Jenna asked, surprised.
“Of course, Jennie. I may be old, but I’m not a dinosaur. I took computer courses at the library, and while I won’t be writing code anytime soon—or ever—I can certainly log into Netflix and watch television.”
“Do you mind if I check your settings?” Noah asked. “I’ll let you onto my network, too.”
Aunt Maggie handed him the tablet. “Certainly.”
When it was done, Jenna took Aunt Maggie upstairs to the guest room and showed her the bathroom too. When her aunt assured her she had everything she needed—the guys had taken her bags upstairs when they’d arrived—Jenna left her alone with her iPad and closed the door.
Noah was standing in the living room when she went down. He looked up worriedly, and her heart skipped. “Do you think she liked me?” he asked. “Or was that just her being polite?”
Jenna went over and put her arms around him, tipping her head back to look up at him. “She likes you. Aunt Maggie speaks her mind, in case you couldn’t tell. If she was dubious about you, she wouldn’t have held your hand.”
“Good to know. I like her, too. She’s not what you’d expect, is she?”
“Nope….” She hesitated. “Um, were those things true? What you said about being fascinated with me and wanting to know everything about me?”
“All true. I liked you when I met you at the diner. I like you even more now.”
“Because we’re having sex, you mean,” she teased.
He put his hands on her hips and drew her against him. “Doesn’t hurt. But no, it’s not the only reason. I like who you are, Jenna. The way you care about people.”
“What makes you think I care?”
He snorted. “Don’t even try to deflect like that. I see you, Jenna. I see your heart.”
Her stomach tightened. She hoped he didn’t see everything about her heart. If he did, then he’d know it was hopelessly his. “How about I show you some other parts of me?” she purred.
“Mmm, what’d you have in mind?”
She took his hand and led him toward the stairs. “You’ll see.”
“How’s Jenna’s aunt?” Gem asked the next morning as they hit the gym before work.
“She’s fine,” Noah replied. “She fixed pancakes for me.”
Gem stopped lifting the dumbbell he’d been curling. “Wait—pancakes? This morning?”
“Yep.” Noah dropped his dumbbell and grinned. “She was dressed and puttering around the kitchen when I got downstairs. She’d already mixed the batter and was just waiting for someone to show up.”
“Man, you suck.”
Noah laughed. “I have a toddler and two grown women in the house. You willing to take all that on for some homemade pancakes?”
Gem shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe. Well, except the toddler. Can we change it to two nubile women who’re crazy for me and sleep naked on either side of me?”
“It’s your fantasy,” Noah said. “Make it whatever you want.”
“I guess the pancakes were amazing?”
“With warm syrup. Yes, amazing. Also the reason I’m doing extra sets this morning.” Noah wiped the sweat from his brow. “Between Jenna’s dinners and her aunt’s pancakes, I think I gotta be careful.”
In reality he burned off extra calories easily because of the physical aspects of the job, but it was fun to rub it in Gem’s face a tiny bit.
“You suck,” Gem said.
Noah laughed. “You asked, dude.”
Mal sauntered over, towel slung over his shoulder. “Homemade pancakes, huh? And dinner on the table when you get home. Man, better be careful. You’ll be domesticated in no time.”
“Like you?”
Mal grinned. “Like me. Best feeling ever, my man.”
“Both of you suck,” Gem said.
“Jealous?” Mal asked.
“Hell, no. I’m looking for busty twins or best friends who cater to my every sexual need. That’s better than breakfast and dinner and honey-do lists any day.”
“Dream on,” Mal said.
Saint walked into the gym. The members of Strike Team 2 could tell from his expression that something was going down. They congregated around him and waited.
“Message from the top, gentlemen. We’ve got seventy-two hours until we board the plane. Time to get your shit together and prepare to go. Our fun-filled vacation destination this time is Qu’rim, which you are all familiar with. A congresswoman and her staff are going for a little visit, and we get to play protection detail.”
Wolf groaned. “Qu’rim? Does anybody else get bad vibes every time we head that way?”
“You mean like that time we caught Ian Black and he still walked free?” Noah asked. None of them would forget that mission a few years back when they’d first met the mysterious Mr. Black and thought they’d ended his operation. Little did they know how powerful he was, or that he was actually one of the good guys. When they’d had to let him go, they’d been filled with impotent anger and frustration at the situation. Now, Black’s Bandits were a vital part of their operations from time to time.
“That’s what I was thinking of, yeah,” Wolf said. “But there was also the time we tried to track down the new leader of the Freedom Force and got nowhere. And now we’re on a protection detail for a congresswoman? Greeeaaat. Sounds fun.”
“Look on the bright side,” Saint said. “This is a quick trip in and out. Unless we get pulled for something else, we’ll be home again in a week.”
“That is truly a bright side,” said Hacker, who’d arrived a few minutes earlier. “Especially since I might not get to say goodbye to Bliss before we go. She flew out this morning at six.”
“Did she have any idea when she’d get into the house?” Noah asked, feeling both guilty that his teammate was giving up valuable time with his fiancée and grateful that she hadn’t delayed heading to Las Vegas.
“Bliss is very resourceful,” Hacker said. “She expected to get in there sometime tonight. I don’t know details because she felt I needed deniability.”
“Good woman,” Saint murmured.
Hacker grumbled. “Yeah, but I don’t like it. Except it’s necessary.” He shot a glance at Noah. “Wipe that guilty look off your face, Easy. Bliss makes her own decisions, as she reminded me, and it’s my job to be supportive. So I’m supporting her. I just wish it hadn’t had to happen now.”