Just Kidding (SWAT Generation 2.0 #1)(65)

I just had this gut feeling that wasn’t going away.

After an afternoon and evening spent looking for Shondra, we’d settled for Theo, who’d been helping Luke look for her for the last couple of hours with no results.

Which meant I’d gotten more and more pissed as the day had progressed to the point where now my SWAT loyalties were being tested.

I growled in frustration and stood up, leaning over the bed so that my face was close to hers.

“You get hurt in any way, and I’m going to lose my shit,” I growled. “Lose. My. Shit.”

She cupped my face and brought my mouth to hers.

“Go, babe,” she ordered. “And bring me back a cookie.”

I stood up straight and looked down at her.

“You’re not allowed to have cookies,” I told her. “The doc said…”

“The doctor can kiss my ass,” she said. “I deserve a motherfuckin’ cookie.”

The room went silent as everyone listened to her words.

I couldn’t help the small laugh that burst free of me when I thought about how ferocious she was over a cookie.

“Yes, ma’am.” I shook my head.

Then looked at Reese and my dad. “Take care of her.”

Seconds later, I left with Derek, my eyes scanning every fucking person we passed on the way out.

“Don’t see her,” I muttered darkly to Derek.

Derek grunted out a ‘me neither’ as we continued to make our way outside.

After arriving at the end of the hallway and the elevator, I rubbed my face and tired eyes with my fingers.

“I was right there while that shit was going down,” Derek said, sounding just as tired as I felt. “My sister was getting her head bashed in with a hammer, and I was mowing her fucking lawn, ten feet away.” He shook his head as we stepped into the elevator. “I saw Rachelle over there, too. Watched her like a hawk because she came from the side of your place. I didn’t know what the hell she was doing. Was so interested in what she was doing looking like she came from your back yard that I…”

“She was coming from the back yard?” I asked.

He nodded once.

Our phones went off again, this time with a cancellation of the SWAT call.

Derek breathed a sigh of relief.

I, on the other hand, was trying to figure out why Rachelle would’ve ever left the fuckin’ porch.

Then I remembered something Rowen had said about Shondra looking over her shoulder at something, and Rowen turning around before everything went black, and my heart skipped a beat.

“Fuck yes,” Derek muttered, shoving his phone back into the pocket.

When the doors opened, and he went to press the floor we were just on, I stilled him and gestured for him to follow me out of the elevator.

“I have a suspicion…” I started, explaining what I suspected.

Derek’s eyes, once I got done explaining, were hot with an inner fire.

“Is that right?” he said, his jaw tense. “Well, let’s just go ask her what she wanted to apologize for.”

I managed to pick up a few tag-alongs on our way to Rachelle’s place.

Bourne Pena, one of the twins, as well as Adam Stoker, another very good friend, and Malachi Stokes. All members of the SWAT team and men that Derek must’ve been able to get for backup on such short notice.

“What do you have, a hotline of phone numbers in there?” I asked.

Derek shrugged and shoved his phone back into the pocket as he nodded at the last of the men, Malachi, who’d shown up.

“Can’t hurt to have a couple of friends who know how to handle themselves,” Derek admitted, grinning at Bourne. “Y’all know what happened to my sister?”

“Been out looking right along with half of Kilgore,” Malachi murmured softly. “So yeah, we know what happened to your sister.” He turned to me. “Heard you’re gonna be a daddy.”

I felt something in the vicinity of my heart start to swell as emotion overcame me.

I was going to be a father.

“Yeah,” I croaked.

“Congrats,” Bourne said. “Welcome to the lost dad’s club.”

I snorted.

Bourne didn’t have a baby. But his brother, Booth, did. And spent just as much time taking care of the kid as Booth did.

“What’s going on?” Adam asked.

I looked at one of my best friends in the world and immediately explained what I suspected.

Adam’s glare was ferocious.

“Let’s go fucking ask her, then,” he suggested.

“Best idea I’ve heard all night,” I muttered, turning and walking up the front walk of a woman that at one point in time I’d thought I’d known.

Turns out, I didn’t know her at all.

Oh, and she wasn’t home.

Her husband, however, was.

And he was most helpful with his houseguest for the evening.

***

Rowen

“I have to pee,” I groaned.

Max chuckled and moved to help me out of the bed.

My mother had disappeared out to the nurses’ station about twenty minutes ago, and I was so sore and unsteady on my feet that I was unwilling to be picky about who helped me out of the bed.

“Thanks,” I muttered, holding onto my gown at the back and my IV pole with both hands. “Can you close it behind me?”