put her hands on her hips. “So you can take me with you, or I can keep following you. But either way, I’m not getting left behind while you go in there alone.”
She was worried about him. Ready to march into battle to protect him. This woman… She blew his damned mind.
He pulled her in for a brief, hard kiss, then let her go.
“You’re a pain in the ass sometimes, gorgeous. But I like it. Let’s go fight, little warrior.”
Noah didn’t have to slow down at all for Marilyn; she stayed right behind him every step of the way. Within two hours they were getting close. It was the silence in the woods around him that let him know that there was an unknown and unnatural predator nearby. The small sound of radio static crackle in the distance confirmed it.
He was going to have to leave her behind again. She probably wasn’t going to like it; hell, he didn’t like it, either. Didn’t want to take a chance on leaving her unprotected. But he needed to scout out the situation alone.
They came to an outcropping of rocks near a small drop-off by a waterfall—the safest place he was going to find. At least here she was surrounded on two sides. He grabbed a large stick and gave it to her.
“What’s this?”
He kept his voice low. “It’s the best weapon we have. I need you to stay here, gorgeous—”
“But…”
“Jared and/or his buddies are nearby. I need to scout and ascertain the exact situation. This is not about me being overly protective of you. This is about me using the skills the U.S. Government spent a good deal of money making sure I received. You’re going to have to trust me.”
“I do trust you.” She grabbed his arm. “But promise someday soon, you’ll teach me how to track so I don’t have to be left behind again.”
“Done and done. I’ll see you soon. If anyone else but me comes near, swing that branch at their head as hard as you can and scream your lungs out. Remember everything we’ve worked on.”
She nodded.
He didn’t want to leave her but forced himself to turn and go. He was keeping her safer by leaving her here.
Fuck. He hoped.
He ran silently for a couple of minutes then stopped, closing his eyes, allowing the sounds around him to filter into his consciousness. He heard the unnatural break of twigs and opened his eyes, moving in that direction. A few seconds later, another crackle of a walkie-talkie.
Got you.
Soundless, he moved closer.
“How many times are you going to let that damn thing give off noise?”
Noah immediately recognized Jared’s lawyer, Oscar Stobbart’s voice. Zac hadn’t been able to get any recordings of them inside the townhouse, but he’d gotten some from other places, so Noah recognized his voice.
“As many times as I have to until you all agree they might’ve moved on,” a second man said.
“They had two small children, no supplies, no food, no light. It made much more sense for them to stop once it got dark. So, we keep searching around here, Paul.”
That would be Paul Wyn, another part of Ellis’s posse.
“Well, I’ve searched my quadrant twice and nobody’s there,” Wyn hissed. “No sign of anyone. I think they moved on.”
“If it wasn’t for you and your damn cigarettes, we would’ve had them back near the trail.”
“Fuck off. I wanted to have a cigarette break. And how do you know they found them?”
“Well,” Stobbart sneered, “they turned in a different direction and started covering up their tracks at that clearing where they obviously found your butts.”
Noah wasn’t surprised that Tanner had gotten away from them. And Stobbart was right, it did make more sense that Tanner had found a place to hide to give the kids and Bree a place to rest. They’d be exhausted by now.
What didn’t make sense was why Stobbart and Wyn were having this huge conversation right here, out loud. It gave too much of their location away if they thought Tanner was nearby.
It was a trap.
“And anyway,” Wyn continued, “that bitch isn’t even with them. We’re not going to be able to bring her back to Jared if she isn’t around.”
Noah ignored the rage eating through him at the confirmation that these assholes were here to take Marilyn. Right now, the most important thing was getting her and the kids to safety, which meant finding Tanner.
Wyn and Stobbart continued talking as he widely circled around them. They thought Tanner was nearby and