Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,86

I don’t know about you, but I could use something to eat.”

Sam sat up. “Yeah, but you’re not the one to go out shopping. Not in this city, by yourself. I think I have some Cheerios in my bag.”

“Dry Cheerios,” Robin repeated. “Yay, but, no thank you.”

Sam shot him a look. “I have powdered milk, too, but I meant for Ash, and even Emma, in the morning, if she’s up for it.” He pointed with his chin toward the bag that sat on the sad-looking dresser. “I still have some power bars. And chocolate. We can make it—ration the diapers—until we’re on the plane tomorrow.”

Robin had to laugh, but he did it quietly. “You seriously believe we’re leaving tomorrow?”

“Oh, yeah. Come hell or high water, we are getting on that plane.” When Sam said it like that, complete with his trademark Texas twang, it rang of absolute-factness.

It would’ve been so easy to buy into the former SEAL’s military-officer-grade conviction. Still, Robin knew better. “The way I figure it, Ashie’ll start throwing up some time around four A.M. Or Mikey. Or both of ’em, just to make life interesting. After which it’s only a matter of time before you and I fall. We need to have enough food and water here in this room before that happens, because as much as you don’t want me going out there, I don’t want Gina going out there.”

“I won’t fall,” Sam said with that same written-in-stone tone.

“Dream on. You’re already looking green,” Robin countered.

“I’m not saying I won’t lose my lunch. That’s coming, believe me, I know that. It’s amazing it hasn’t happened yet. But what I’m saying is I won’t fall when I do. Trust me, I’ve been sick before while out in the world,” Sam told him. Out in the world was slang for out on a SEAL mission. “And this situation sucks, for sure, but it’s nothing like that was. I’ll be able to get us the food and water we need.”

He said it with that same grim certainty, but Robin was not convinced. “If you’re dehydrated and delirious—”

“I won’t be.”

“—then it’s gonna be on me,” Robin said. “And I’d rather go out and get the supplies now, rather than having to leave both you and Gina alone with—”

“And I’m saying no.” Sam held up his hand, his eyes tightly closed, as if he were willing away whatever awfulness he was feeling. Apparently, it didn’t work, because he whispered, “Ah, fuck,” and then scrambled for the bathroom.

“Okay, so I was wrong with my doomsday scenario,” Robin admitted, even though there was no way Sam could hear him over the unpleasant noise he was making in that bathroom. “It’s not Ash who throws up at four A.M., it’s you who yukes at right-now o’clock, followed by Ash and Mike, simultaneously, at four A.M.”

Robin checked the babies. They were both sleeping soundly, lying on the firm mattress. He took the pillows and blankets off the bed. It was warm enough in there—understatement, it was a sauna—not to need them. This way, Ash and Mikey would be fine, even if they woke up.

He then checked for his wallet—it was in the back left pocket of his jeans—before moving toward the bathroom, where he expected to see Sam kneeling before the porcelain goddess through the slightly open door. “I’ll see if housekeeping has some kind of bucket we can borrow, so you can at least sit out there and keep an eye on—”

But Sam was already standing and rinsing his face from the questionable water coming out of the faucet of the sink.

Robin pushed the door all the way open. “Don’t drink any of that,” he warned, and Sam shot him a baleful look.

“I’m not an idiot, Boy Wonder.”

“For all I know, you’re delirious.”

“Will you stop with the delirious.” Sam wiped his face with a towel, then braced himself on the edge of the sink as he glared into the mirror, as if willing himself to be well enough to run their errands in a strange city in a foreign country in the middle of the very dark and potentially dangerous night.

“I can do this,” Robin said.

“What if someone recognizes you?” Sam asked, and the fact that he was no longer flatly saying no was a testament to how awful he was feeling.

“Then … I’ll sign an autograph for them …?”

Sam didn’t laugh. “I’ll go, and just fucking get this over with.”

Robin countered with his own worst-case scenario. “What if you go out, and you