Walker (Bowen Boys, #1)(16)

“He’ll be there in about five seconds.”

She looked at the timer on the computer pad. Close, but not too bad.

When they were in the truck, she turned to Walker. “Don’t move until I tell you to. Once the house blows, you’ll need to drive straight out the back. This part of the garage is safe.”

“And you’ll tell me what the hell is going on.”

She nodded even though it sounded more like a demand than a question.

“I want to know what the hell I just—”

The house blew. She didn’t know where he had parked, but if he parked in her driveway then his vehicle was toast too, or soon would be. As soon as she told him to go, he gunned it out the now missing wall in what was once the back. He moved along the debris covered yard like the hounds of hell were after him.

“My truck in on fire.”

She glanced back and saw it was. Using the small remote on her phone, she punched in another code and his truck exploded in flames as it reached for the sky. As it came back down to rest on the large hole that was once her yard, it exploded again, this time obliterating the entire thing.

~~~

Walker didn’t say anything. Actually, he wasn’t sure what to say. Or even to ask. She’d blown up his truck as well as her house. He glanced over at her and could see that she was in pain. And a great deal of it. He wanted to let her suffer, but couldn’t. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the prescription that he had picked up for her when Jane had said her pain pills had been lost. He wondered, not for the first time, if she’d lost them on purpose.

She stared at it for several seconds before she popped it in her mouth and swallowed it dry. He knew then she was hurting more than he could see. He turned where she said and decided that he’d been patient enough. “What is it you do for a living?” He thought that was the best way to start. “I know you claim to be a school teacher, but I think that’s bullshit now.”

“I work for the United States government. I also work with the CIA when they need me. The house was mine and I will pay you for the truck.” He didn’t think it could get more surreal than it was right now. “My boss, an operative for a group of people that the CIA doesn’t control, just tried to have me killed. As I think on it, he is probably the reason those other men were able to get into my house so easily. He had helped them.”

“The men who were chasing you.”

She nodded.

“And now that you have no house, where do we go?”

“I go to my own version of a safe house after I drop you off somewhere.” She laid her head back and closed her eyes. “There’s a hotel up Route Forty that you can stay at until I make arrangements for you to get another vehicle.”

As she listed to the side, he wondered if she thought he was actually going to leave her after this. When her head leaned onto his shoulder he shifted on the seat and helped her lay across his lap. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he was reasonably sure that whatever it was she wasn’t going to tell him willingly. He decided that he was going to keep her safe even if she shot him.

Smiling, Walker pulled out his cell phone and called his brother. Khan answered on the first ring. This was not going to go well from his tone. At this point Walker was pretty sure he didn’t care.

“I’m with Caitlynne. And I won’t be coming back there until you can be civil to her and treat her as my mate.”

When Khan started cursing, Walker simply hung up. He was ready to toss the phone out the window when it rang again. He answered because the caller ID said his dad.

“You pissed him off something horrible. You tell him to f*ck off or else?”

Walker laughed at his dad’s humor.

“I hope to hell so. Someone needs to put him in a place where he needs to see reason.”

“I won’t be coming home again until he can promise me he’ll treat her respectfully.” His dad laughed again. “Do you think that’s even possible?”

“Yes. And as much as I hate to agree with you, I think this is best. Keep me in the loop, son. I don’t want anything to happen to… That girl, didn’t Jane say she lived on Blueberry Avenue?”

“Yes. And yes, it was her house. I’ll explain to you later.” As soon as he figured it out. “I’m going to stay with her. I don’t know where yet, but I’ll be in touch.”

He ended up at a hotel on the same route she’d said, but not sure which one she had thought of. Walker had chosen this one because it had doors on the ground level and he could see the highway. He didn’t know why, but had watched a great many spy movies to know that a person wanted to be able to get back out on the road at a moment’s notice.

Walker had told the man that it was he and his wife taking up residency in their place. He had no idea what she would think about that, but right now, didn’t care. After he put her on the bed and brought in the bags she had handed him, he sat down in the room’s only chair and looked at her.

She was beautiful. He had noticed that before, but now that she was resting and healthy he saw that her skin was a creamy white with a small amount of freckles spread across her nose and cheeks. He loved her long hair, red as a blazing sun, and she had the most amazing colored eyes. He thought he’d never think of them as simply blue again. He then looked over at the bags.