Defending Morgan (Mountain Mercenaries #3)(71)



“Lance is about the same height as his brother,” Morgan volunteered. “Of course, everyone seems tall to me, but Thomas is taller than both of them.”

“Carl is the right height,” Meat muttered as he clicked on his laptop.

Arrow swore under his breath when Morgan froze.

“My dad? You think my dad hurt Dave? Why? Why would he do that?”

“He’s been acting more desperate for you to talk to the press,” Arrow said gently. “You said yourself the last time you talked to him that you didn’t understand why it was so important to him that you go on television.”

“But . . . he’s my dad,” she said.

Arrow hated to see the pain and confusion in her eyes.

“He could’ve orchestrated the whole thing to drum up attention, make people feel sorry for him, or to further his career,” Gray said.

“And he has done extremely well in the last year . . . in part, thanks to his missing daughter,” Black added.

Morgan shook her head. “He wouldn’t do that to me,” she protested.

“We have to admit, he has the connections,” Arrow said as gently as he could. “Because of his job as CFO, he travels internationally a lot, and I think there’s even a branch of the organization in Puerto Rico. That’s not too far from the Dominican Republic.”

“My dad?” Morgan said, her eyes filling with tears. “Not my dad.”

“Here,” Meat said, turning the computer toward Morgan. “I agree with Arrow that I don’t think you should watch all of the video, but I’ve cued it up from the beginning so you can see if you recognize the person.”

Morgan stood and crossed to the desk. Leaning over the laptop, she concentrated on the figure on the tape. Meat let it play until just before the mysterious man started hitting Dave.

“Can you play it again?” Morgan asked.

Meat didn’t say a word, just clicked the time bar and played it again.

After it was finished, Morgan sighed and stood up straight. “I don’t recognize him. There’s just not a clear enough view of his face. I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Arrow told her, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not my dad, though,” she added. “He moves with more . . . purpose or something. I don’t know.”

“No, that’s a good observation,” Meat said. “And I agree.”

“We’re going home,” Arrow told both Morgan and the others. “If anything more comes up, you know where to find me.”

“I’ll stay on it,” Meat told him, looking at Morgan with sympathy in his eyes.

“We’re going to do whatever we can to figure this out,” Gray told her.

“Try not to worry,” Black threw in.

Arrow knew that last one was impossible, but he appreciated his friends doing what they could to reassure Morgan.

He led her past the bar. Noah asked if they wanted water for the road, which they both declined. Arrow made a mental note to text Gray as soon as he could and suggest they look into the other bartender as well. There was a possibility that the attack on Dave wasn’t related to Morgan at all. Maybe it was a jealousy thing. They couldn’t rule anyone out at this point.

Morgan hadn’t said much after she hadn’t been able to ID the perp, and Arrow was worried this could be the thing that pushed her over the edge. She’d been doing so well since she’d come back to Colorado Springs. She was eating well, looked healthier, and had been sleeping through the night. The last thing he wanted was for her nightmares to come back, or for her to step away from him out of some misguided need to protect him or some such bullshit.

Feeling helpless, and wanting to kill someone at the same time, Arrow kept her hand in his the entire way back to his apartment complex. He greeted Robert solemnly and held her against him as they rode up the elevator in silence.

Once they were safely inside his apartment, he asked, “What can I do to make this better, beautiful?”

“Hold me?” she asked.

“With pleasure.” Arrow led her straight to their room and sat her on the bed. He gently took off her shoes and took hold of the bottom of her T-shirt. “Lift,” he ordered softly.

She raised her arms above her head without protest and let him remove her shirt. He walked to the dresser and pulled out a tank top, knowing she liked to sleep in them. He pulled it over her head, then reached underneath to undo her bra. He’d seen her take it off from under her shirt enough to know how it was done. It was lying on the floor in seconds. “Lean back.”

She did, and he unbuttoned her jeans and drew them down her legs, not even noticing what color panties she was wearing. His mind wasn’t on sex. It was on trying to make her as relaxed as possible before comforting her.

He went back to the drawer and pulled out a pair of sweats. He pulled those up her legs and helped her lift her hips so he could settle them around her waist. Then he yanked off his own shirt and climbed into bed behind her, enfolding her in his arms.

She didn’t cry, but held on to him so tightly he knew he’d have indentations from her fingers for hours. He didn’t know what to say to make this better for her, so he said nothing, simply tried to make sure she knew how much he loved her by his actions.

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