Page 47 of Midnight Escape

“They need you at that console watching that dot. Besides,you need to earn your keep.” Stone sullenly left the room, and Devon chuckled.

Since Stone had begun helping Devon with their computer backup—their lifeline—he’d had a hard time making the break with the team. While they’d hoped he could do both, it wasn’t possible.

AJ rattled off his instructions. “Saddle up. You’ll cover Franks’s house and Moira. Ken, you go back home and recuperate. If the team needs help, we’ll get it for them.”

Ken looked around the group. “Where are the replacements?”

“Oh,” AJ said with a sly smile. “They’re here.”

The twins stepped out of the shadows and almost scared Danny. They were damn spooky. If they’d talk more, they could probably offer a lot to the team. Until then, he’ll take backup. They’d saved him on that cliff when the hostiles had closed in on him, before he’d stepped into blackness.

That flight through the sky had been a scary-as-shit move and an exhilarating one. Now he knew why Cowboy pushed for more and more. That rush of power… no, life… could become an addiction. He had heard that from Ken and Jesse while discussing all the services. That had been a conversation that got him thinking as to why, if spec ops were a better fit, had they hired “alphabets?” It made him feel second-hand, but now wasn’t the time to ponder that any further.

Ken walked over and shook their hands, and, to the team’s astonishment, Jane and John had a conversation with him. The team kept glancing at Ken or each other, not sure what had happened. Maybe their talkativeness would carry over to the rest of them or at least to ops.

Turning back to the brothers, Ken appeared ready to argue, as Danny would’ve expected. Then AJ held up a hand, stopping their tangent conversation. “Do you want me to call Sugar and tell her I sent you home, but you didn’t go? I imagine she’d not be happy with you taking your battered body out of your home.”

Boss—as the team called him, even though the brothers were technically the bosses—dropped his head a bit and brought his hand up; using his thumb and forefinger, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He sighed as if it pained him and lifted his head. “All right, but I expect to be kept in the loop.” His glare at Danny told him he should make it happen.

AJ nodded. “Done. Now go home.”

Before he left, Ken put a hand on Danny’s shoulder, gripping tightly. “If you need me, you’d better call me. If any of you get hurt—or Moira—because you didn’t want me out there, I’ll kick your ass so bad you won’t be able to sit down for a month. Then, you’ll run drills from dawn to dusk.”

There was no chance he’d call Boss. The man had been beat to hell and shot, oh, and held captive. He hadn’t fully recuperated, but Danny wouldn’t say anything that might keep him from leaving. “You know I will.”

After Ken departed, they got back down to business.

“Is there anything you can think of about last night that we haven’t discussed?” AJ asked, with his brows raised.

Telling the brother that he’d kissed her and that might’ve made her run wouldn’t happen. He’d come to that possible conclusion because she’d run in for help, then ran out to possible trouble. Then she hadn’t stayed where her bed was located.At least, he told himself, she hadn’t been in a man’s bed… as far as he knew. He hadn’t worried about Luke, but maybe a friend of her friends?

He wracked his brain to find any little snippets that caught his attention last night but came up with nothing because his back had been turned. “No, but Cowboy and Doc might’ve seen more.”

AJ’s face scrunched in confusion. Danny feared it, but he should’ve known he couldn’t avoid this question, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Why didn’t you see anything? Were you in the shitter?”

Cowboy laughed, and it only got louder, until he’d bent over, clutching his gut. Danny wanted to shoot him in the ass.

Hoping to head off Cowboy, Danny turned back to AJ and said, “We, uh— We—” He couldn’t get it out.

“We played movie star,” Cowboy said, with a grin so wide Danny wanted to knock it off his face. He liked Cowboy, but the man sometimes tested his patience.

“Movie star?” AJ asked, looking between the men.

Oh, hell. He’d forgotten that wasn’t a HIS standard protection technique. In fact, Cowboy had only come up with it a few days before as a joke.

“It’s something we created—more out of fun, than anything else. The way Moira crashed into me and our being about to exit before the confrontation, with limited options, we decided to implement it. It worked great.”

“Uhm, so I take it the two of you stood as protection refusing to allow anyone close. What I’m curious about is how you hid her from prying eyes?”

Danny coughed into his fist. He felt like a school kid trying to find a way around the truth. A truth he’d promised himself he wouldn’t share. Well, he had a negative trend on keeping secrets where Moira was concerned. Ready to buck up and tell the truth, he should’ve known that Cowboy would take this glory or shame, since he’d hidden it until now.

“He kissed her. And I’m not talking about a peck on the lips. They were down and dirty. I expected them to drop on the floor and tear their clothes off,” Cowboy said proudly.

Danny groaned. He needed to transfer Cowboy to the other team. He wondered how Cowboy’s former Air Force Pararescuemen tolerated him while he’d been on active duty.

AJ looked at him sternly. “Was she willing?” Devon halted and looked at him expectantly.

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