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6

HOLLY

Asher hung up and looked my way, taking my hand in his. Oh, God. I was going to throw up. This was really bad. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through the nausea. I would not puke. I really would not puke under any circumstance.

Okay, I might puke.

“Keep pressure on that wound, Noelle.”

“Really?” Noelle snapped. “Because I was going to let him bleed out.”

Her sarcasm was a welcome reprieve from the growing tension around me, giving me something else to concentrate on. What the heck was going on? Since I met Asher, my life had been flipped upside down. I thought it was bad when his dead wife came back into the picture. I had been going along without a care in the world, perfectly happy and content.

Then bam! Dead wife and secrets came out of the woodwork. A life of spies and arms dealers and all kinds of crap that I never really thought of came to light. I was a little shop owner. That world was miles from mine. Heck, I was the woman who rolled around on the floor to measure for a rug. Then he entered the picture and everything was thrown off kilter.

And now…

“You okay over there, Holly bear?”

Was I okay? Sure, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. Car chases, guns, explosions. Just another Tuesday.

“Holly?”

“Huh?” I asked, looking over at my stud muffin boyfriend.

“Baby, are you okay?”

God, I loved it when he called me cute nicknames. He was so handsome. Not that this was the time to daydream about how handsome he was. I already had him. I didn’t need to think about how perfect he was.

“Sure,” I nodded. “You know, you’re shooting at people and our house exploded and Wyatt was shot. It’s just another Tuesday.”

“It’s actually Thursday, but that’s okay,” he grinned, showing me his pearly whites. Swoon. Even in a shootout or car chase, he was still the most handsome man I’d ever met.

Car chase…Maybe I should come clean about my little secret. Would now be a good time to tell him? He might freak out. Then again, holding it back any longer seemed like a bad thing. He’d probably want to know. Then again, it might make things worse.

Oh, what the hell.

“I guess this would be a bad time to tell you I’m pregnant.”

His eyes snapped to mine and all the color leached from his face as his eyes zeroed in on my belly. “You’re what?”

Yep, bad time to tell him. “You’ve been mounting me every chance you get. Is it really a surprise?”

Noelle snorted in the back seat. “Not exactly a Hallmark moment.”

“No, but— Christ, the explosion…did I hurt you?”

“Did you hurt me when you protected me from smacking into the ground?”

“You know, I’m seriously reconsidering your employment,” Wyatt grumbled from the back seat.

“I’m about to be a father, and now you want to cut me out of a job?” Asher snapped.

“I’ve been shot!”

“I’m having a baby!”

Wyatt jabbed a finger in my direction. “She’s having a baby. You’re just the sperm donor.”

Okay, that was slightly offensive. “How about we all just calm down a minute?—”

“I would just like to say that you both deserve this,” Noelle chimed in. “After all the nauseating crap you put me through at the grocery store, the bank, the gas station—it’s about time you get a non-Hallmark baby moment!”

“That’s a little harsh,” I muttered.

“Can we just focus on getting out of here alive?” Asher shouted, ending the argument.

I closed my eyes, biting my lip as another wave of nausea washed over me. I breathed through it, praying I could just hold it in. We didn’t exactly have time to pull over so I could throw up. But when Asher took another turn way too fast and then hit the gas, it just bubbled up in my throat, and that was it. I bent forward and hurled right there at my feet.

“Well, that’s one way to make this more exciting,” Noelle murmured.

Sitting up, I wiped my mouth, glancing over at Asher. “Sorry about your truck.”

“We have to ditch it anyway.”

Well, at least there was that.

“Feel better?”

“Not until we get my parents.”

“We’re almost there, Holly bear.”

Now I just had to hope I made the right call and didn’t trade my parents’ lives for Wyatt and Noelle’s. I didn’t know how to feel about the decision I made, and I hadn’t examined it all too closely yet. But the fact was, we’d spoken to my parents. Wyatt wasn’t picking up the phone.

Asher slowed down as we approached the police station, his eyes tracking every vehicle as we approached.

“What are you looking for?”

“Even the police can be bought.”

“You think the police are going to kill us?” I asked incredulously. “They can’t do that!”

“Baby, I don’t think the police are going to kill us, but if there’s a dirty cop, he’ll be waiting for us out here.”

Suddenly, I didn’t like the idea of being out here at all. Every person in the parking lot looked like someone who wanted to kill us.

“How are we going to do this?” I asked, rubbing my hands on my jeans.

“I’m going to get them,” he said, parking right in front of the building. “Stay here.”

“Stay here? You just said someone’s going to kill us!”

“I said someone could. Not that they would.” He pulled his gun out and slid something metal out, then back in. I had no idea what he was doing. Then he held it out to me.

“What are you doing?”

“Take this.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

He grabbed my hand and pressed the gun into my palm. I flinched at the weight of it. “Don’t use this unless you have to.”

“Asher—”

“This is the trigger,” he said, pointing to the half-circle thingy. “Point and pull this back. Simple as that. This is the safety,” he said, pointing to a red dot. “On. Off.” He flicked it several times, showing me. “Got it?”

My heart was thundering inside with every second that passed. I was not cut out for this. “Asher, I can’t do this. I?—”

“Holly, nothing is going to happen, okay? This is just a precaution. I can’t take the gun into the station with me. Wyatt’s bleeding out and I wouldn’t put a gun into Noelle’s hands unless I wanted to get shot.”

“Trust me, that’s very much an option right now,” she retorted.

His palm cupped my cheek roughly as he leaned in. “You’ve got this. Keep your eyes peeled.”

I shook hard, but as he stared into my eyes, I found myself nodding. I could do this. “Okay.”

His lips crashed down on mine and then he was gone. I hit the door lock and held the gun gingerly, afraid I would accidentally shoot someone if I wasn’t careful. It didn’t matter if the safety was on. I didn’t trust myself. I hadn’t held a gun in my entire life, and watching an action movie hardly qualified me to hold one, let alone shoot one.

Laughter bubbled up in my throat before I quickly tamped it down. I would not go crazy right now. I had no idea what to do, so I mimicked what Asher did when we pulled in, looking around the parking lot for any threats. The problem was, now that Asher put the thought in my head, every single person I saw looked like a threat. If I didn’t distract myself, I’d go crazy.

I turned around and looked at Wyatt, instantly regretting it when I saw the blood soaking his shirt. Wyatt was pale and Noelle was oddly silent.

“How is he?”

“He is right here,” Wyatt muttered with his eyes closed.

“Sorry. You’re just…you look dead.” That was probably something I should have kept to myself.

“Considering I have more blood on my clothes and hands than he has on his shirt, I’m guessing that’s not good,” Noelle snapped.

“Again, right here,” Wyatt said.

“I know literally nothing about gunshot wounds. How did it happen?”

“He wasn’t fast enough to dodge a bullet,” Noelle retorted.

“I shoved you out of the way,” Wyatt muttered.

“You were being an ass. I don’t need to be rescued.”

“Clearly,” he mumbled. “Otherwise, it would be you with the bullet hole.”

My eyes widened at what I just heard. “He took a bullet for you?”

“Don’t read too much into this,” Noelle glared at me. “This is not a Hallmark moment.

“No, but maybe a Lifetime moment. Like if you were dying of cancer or something. They definitely have those shows. This would fit in.”

“But I’m not dying of cancer,” she argued. “And he didn’t save my life. He jumped in front of a bullet. Who does that?”

“Again, I was saving your life.”

“Oh, shut up. Who asked you?” she shouted, pressing too hard on his side, making him wince.

“Okay, maybe don’t take out your anger on a man with a hole in his side.”

I saw movement outside and grabbed the gun, shrieking as I raised it, only to sigh in relief when I saw it was Asher. He yanked the door open, snatching the gun out of my hands as he climbed inside. My parents quickly climbed in either side of the back, squishing in, careful not to hurt Wyatt.

“What the hell is that smell?” my dad asked.

“Your daughter threw up,” Noelle said not-so-helpfully. “She’s pregnant.”

I turned to my parents’ shocked faces and wiggled my fingers in the air with a forced laugh. “Surprise!”

* * *

I was going to kill Noelle. Between my mother planning every second of my child’s birth for the entire drive to this private airport and my father chastising Asher for knocking up his little girl, I hadn’t gotten a moment’s peace. Not to mention, the smell of puke was only making me feel sick all over again. On the other hand, no one else had chased us down since we left the police station. That had to be a good thing, right?

“Haven’t we been down this road already?” I asked Asher.

“Yeah.”

“Are we just driving in circles?”

“We’re almost to the airport. I had to take the long way getting there.”

“Why?”

“Because we couldn’t just sit there. It’s better to keep moving. But Scottie should be there any minute now.”

Scottie. These were people he worked with—just like the men who showed up at my shop. “That was your old boss.”

He nodded.

“And the other guy?”

“His brother.”

“He looked…scary.”

“You wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley,” Asher muttered.

“Why do I get the feeling I wouldn’t want to meet any of the people from your old life in a dark alley?”

“Most of them are perfectly normal people.”

I twisted in my seat to face him. “So, these people you work with—you said something about a tango.”

His eyes flicked to mine. “That means a bad guy.”

I shook my head. “No, you said something about someone doing a tango with a fox.”

His lips twitched in amusement. “That’s a story for another time.”

“And you used all these weird words.”

“Baby—”

“You carry a gun now. You never used to do that.”

I could tell I hit a nerve when his jaw hardened and his fist tightened on the steering wheel. “I only started after the shit with Jade. It was a reminder that the past can come back at any time.”

“And it did.”

His gaze slowly met mine, but not for long. In an unspoken agreement, we both decided to discuss this later when everyone else wasn’t around. Minutes later, we pulled into the private airfield. Multiple airplanes littered the airfield.

“How do you know which one is his?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

We drove nearly all around the airfield until we saw the plane near the last hangar refueling. “There,” Asher pointed. “That’s it.”

“Thank God. I have to pee,” my mother said.

“You’re not peeing on that plane. They probably collect the samples for testing,” my father argued.

“For what possible reason?”

“They keep it on file! You watch! We’ll get on that plane, and then we’ll end up in some government facility where they’ll keep us in a bunker! They’ll run tests on us and we’ll never be allowed to leave!” my father shouted.

I couldn’t wait to get out of here. Asher motioned me closer.

“I guess it would be a bad thing to mention that OPS is located in a nuclear silo underground.”

I nodded. “Yeah, you won’t get him on the plane if you tell him now.”

“We’ll just keep that under our hats.” He sat up and looked in the back seat. “Nick and Carol, the man refueling the plane is Scottie. You can trust him. I’m going to get Wyatt to FNG. He’s the medic coming down the steps of the plane. Stay close.” Then he turned to me. “Baby?—”

“Eyes peeled,” I repeated his earlier words.

His eyes twinkled just before he thrust his door open and hopped out. I was a nervous wreck as I got out. Anxiety thrummed through my body, making the nausea even worse, but I did my best to keep it under wraps. It wouldn’t do Asher any good to worry about me right now. I kept taking deep breaths, thinking about anything other than the fact that someone was trying to kill us.

And the fact that I hated planes.

I hadn’t mentioned that little fact yet. I hadn’t actually been on a plane before. The idea of going up in the sky in a big metal contraption that could plummet to the ground at any moment seemed like a really stupid idea.

I watched as FNG and Asher helped Wyatt out of the back of the vehicle, then got out and stretched. I breathed in the air, looking around the open countryside and wondering when I would see it again.

That’s when I saw it. Three vehicles were driving really fast down the road. It could be a coincidence. After all, not everyone in Colorado could be after us, right? But as they got closer and closer to the airport, I just knew we weren’t that lucky.

“Uh…Asher!” Panic ripped through me as I saw them down the road, turning toward the airfield. “Asher!” I shouted, running around the vehicle. “There are three cars driving really fast towards us!”

“Take my place,” he ordered.

I doubted I was strong enough to hold Wyatt up, but I would help in any way I could. As soon as I got my shoulder under Wyatt’s arm, Asher took off running.

“You must be Asher’s lady,” FNG said.

“You must be FNG,” I smiled, though this hardly seemed like an occasion to be happy.

“And I’m Wyatt. Can we move now?” he groaned. “Kinda got a bullet in my stomach.”

“We’ve got company!” Asher shouted, running back around. “Get to the plane! FNG, I need guns!”

FNG grabbed a gun from his holster and tossed it to Asher, then grabbed a second from his other thigh holster. “Don’t get dead,” he said just as he tossed the second gun.

“Watch your six.”

I stopped and watched Asher run off, my jaw practically on the ground. “Don’t get dead? Why would he get dead?” I turned back to FNG, shaking my head in confusion. “Why would he get dead?”

“It’s just a saying.”

“You’re saying don’t get dead!”

“I’m about to be dead,” Wyatt muttered.

“We should probably move,” FNG said, jerking his head toward the plane.

“Get your asses to the plane!” Asher shouted.

Tires squealed and Asher fired. I screamed, ducking my head as we started running for the plane while dragging Wyatt with us. He was half-running, half-dragging me down with him.

“You’re really freaking heavy!” I cried out.

“You’re not supposed to comment on a man’s weight.”

“That’s women!”

“I have a feeling we’re going to need parachutes!” FNG shouted.

“That does not make me feel better!”

We reached the stairs and FNG went first, dragging Wyatt up the stairs while I went behind, pushing him upwards. I had a feeling I was pretty much useless, but I did what I could. I looked over my shoulder for Asher, gasping when I saw him hiding behind our truck as men fired at him.

I ran the rest of the way up the steps, looking for FNG. “Hey! Asher’s stuck!”

“Stuck on what?”

“Behind the truck! They’re shooting at him!”

“Someone’s always shooting at him,” he retorted.

What was wrong with these people? Didn’t they want to help him out? I spied a gun on the seat and grabbed it, pulling up my big girl panties. I could do this.

Well, I might be able to do this. I looked it over, flicking off the safety like Asher said. “Point and shoot. Pull back the circle thingy. That’s what he said,” I muttered to myself. “Simple as that.”

I held the gun out like I’d seen in the movies, closing one eye to see better. “Please don’t hit Asher,” I whispered, then pulled the trigger.

But I wasn’t expecting to be flung back from firing. The gun went flying from my hands, tumbling down the stairs and I flew back into the edge of the door of the plane. I cried out as my shoulder blade struck, then screamed when I heard bullets striking the plane.

“Get inside!” Asher shouted, running toward me.

I screamed again, covering my head as I ran inside. I totally was not made out for this life. FNG stormed past me, pulling his own weapon, and then he was firing outside the door where I had been standing. Only, he didn’t go flying into the doorframe or lose his weapon. It definitely wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Boots pounded on the metal stairs and then Asher appeared behind FNG.

“Scottie, let’s move! Get us in the sky!”

“Why is it people are always trying to kill you when you fly with me?” Scottie shouted from the cockpit.

“People have tried to kill you more than once?” I shouted.

He hurried over and kissed me. “Baby, strap in.”

I quickly did as he asked while he helped FNG with the stairs. We were already moving. This didn’t seem right. Weren’t there procedures and things that had to be done? Where was the other pilot? What if he didn’t know what he was doing?

Noelle came running up, taking the seat beside me. “Isn’t this exciting?”

“No, this is not exciting!”

“It sort of is. It’s like we’re the heroines in an action movie.”

I turned to her, shaking my head. “I don’t want to be in an action movie!”

“Well, you shouldn’t have fallen in love with Asher then. Anyone could see he wasn’t normal.”

“I didn’t see that. At no time did you tell me that. You never once said, Hey, you’d better watch out for Asher. He looks like he kills people for a living. ”

Asher stormed to the front of the plane, getting in the front with Scottie.

“Does he know how to fly this thing?” Noelle asked.

“How should I know? Up until six months ago, he was just a mechanic. A normal, slightly secretive mechanic who gave excellent orgasms.”

My mother came running up behind us, lording over me from the row behind. “Honey, your father wants to know if there are any wind farms where we’re going.”

“How should I know?”

“What should I tell him?”

I gripped the armrests as I felt us pick up speed. “Mom, we’re trying to outrun men who want to kill us. I hardly think wind farms are important right now.”

She nodded. “I’ll just tell him there aren’t. If there are any when we get there, I’ll tell him the government lied to us. He’ll believe that.”

I rolled my eyes as she ran back to her seat. I closed my eyes and breathed through the panic and nausea as we started to lift off. It would all be okay. We were going to make it. Everything would be fine.

“Holly bear, you don’t look so good,” Asher said, hurrying over to me with a barf bag.

“I’m breathing through it.”

He slid his hand around my back and rubbed soothingly. “We’ll be there in no time. It’ll be okay.”

I nodded. “Tell me something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Distract me. Tell me a story. Something about your life before.”

That cute grin appeared on his face as he took the seat beside me. “Well, the first time I met Scottie, it was a lot like this, only I was wearing a suit.”

I let out a shaky breath. “A suit? I can’t picture it.”

“Yeah. We were on a job and it went FUBAR. Anyway, we were taking off when these guys showed up. They had a plane too, unfortunately.”

“What happened?”

“It wasn’t pretty. They fired at us, and since we were in a plane like this, we got shot down. We had to jump.”

The nausea almost turned to vomit. “Jump?”

“Oh, we had parachutes. We landed on this mountain, but they knew we didn’t die in the crash, so we had to outrun them. But that wasn’t the easiest thing to do in dress shoes. I was sliding all over the place and if it wasn’t for Scottie, I would be at the bottom of a mountain right now. I slipped and was barely hanging on when Scottie slid down and caught me. It was pretty close, but—” He caught me staring at him in disbelief and winced. “You don’t want to hear this, do you?”

I tried to swallow, but the moment I did that, I gagged and vomit came rushing up through my throat. I just barely turned in time to puke in the bag.

“Maybe you shouldn’t talk about nearly dying right now when her shop was shot up, her house exploded, and men just tried to kill us,” Noelle said. “Just a thought.”

I was going to need so much therapy when this was over.