same stern expression and a familiar way of standing.
She decided to try to slice through the suffocating tension. “Why are you here?”
Rick finally looked at her. His gaze traveled over her then over Gabe. “We should go inside before you two freeze.”
Not a bad suggestion, but she didn’t want him inside or anywhere near the place where she’d been staying with Gabe. Welcoming Rick felt like a betrayal even as her toes began to tingle.
She tried a more tactful approach, though she had no idea why she bothered. If these two planned to kill each other, she’d stand back and watch . . . then jump in to save Gabe. They had reached that point. The one where she couldn’t stand to think of anything happening to him. Damn him.
“If you step across that line you run the risk of—”
Rick cut her off while his gaze traveled back to Gabe. “It’s a warning perimeter. You have weapons set up to fire at other spots, but not here.” The man had the nerve to smile. “I’d say someone taught you well, but since most of that came from me, I’ll refrain.”
She made a mental note not to call Gabe a dick again. This guy was a dick. “How subtle of you.”
“I have never been accused of that, sweetheart.”
Make that a sexist dick. She started to wonder how Rick and Gabe came out of the same household. “Well, sweetheart, even without traps, Gabe and I still have guns.”
“Gabe might be pissed, but he won’t kill me.”
“I will.” She didn’t regret the comment. She meant it, and when she saw Gabe smile out of the corner of her eye, just for a second, there and then gone again, she relaxed. Rick might think he controlled the situation but he was dead wrong.
With a heavy exhale, Rick tucked his gun behind him. “I came to check on the two of you.”
For some reason that annoyed her. Everything this guy said had her wanting to punch something. “We’re fine. Now, leave.”
Rick’s eyebrow lifted. “I see why you like her.”
No, he didn’t get to engage in light banter. Didn’t get to joke with Gabe. Not on this topic or any other. Not while she was around. “You want to date me, too? Or maybe hitting on Gabe’s woman once was enough.”
Gabe nodded. “Yeah, she knows.”
Rage pulsed off Rick. His mouth fell into a flat line and tension almost had him puffing up. “What the fuck, Gabe? You won’t tell Brandon but you tell her. You sure work fast. Screw a woman for a few weeks and she comes running to your side.”
Gabe took a warning step in Rick’s direction. “Her name is Natalie, and she is under my protection. One more wrong word and I will give in to the clawing inside me and wipe you off the earth.”
The man just got more and more attractive. She decided to thank him for that later. After she let Rick know how little she thought of him. “But, really, keep being a condescending ass.”
“It’s too cold to stand out here without the proper weather gear.” Rick kept falling back on that argument.
The guy wasn’t wrong. Not about this. The cold seeped through her sweater and into her bones. Much more time out here and her teeth would start chattering. Her words would slur. With a lower than normal body temperature she’d always been susceptible to cold, and today she could not afford that weakness. “We can go back inside.”
“I’m going to follow.”
Maybe it would be faster to shoot him. She was starting to wonder. “You are such—”
“Enough.” Gabe finally lowered his gun. He nodded toward the ground in front of Rick. “Take a giant step, about three feet and slightly to your left.”
Rick scoffed. “That’s a bit dramatic.”
“Teacher or not, you missed a trap.” Gabe swept an arm out to the side. “If you don’t believe me, step wherever you want.”
Score one for the middle brother. “You shouldn’t have told him.”
Gabe kept talking. “We go inside and you have ten minutes to tell me why you’ve been sending men after us and what the CIA hopes to accomplish with this bullshit.”
Before he finished Rick started shaking his head. “You know I can’t—”
“That’s the only deal to make here, Rick.” Gabe shrugged. “My terms or you crawl home.”
Rick looked from Gabe to her and back again. “Fine.”
Part of her thought Gabe had let his brother off too easy. The other part understood the garbled it’s-confidential talk. She’d been trained