Page 76 of Whiskey Run Heroes

“Yes, she’s fine. We, uh, checked out of the hotel. I have her at my house.”

“Great! I’m glad you talked some sense into her. I’m going to send Carter to come get her, take her to my house.”

I tense when he mentions the other man’s name. I remember him. He is a good guy but he lives somewhere up north. “Why would you send him?”

“Kali knows Carter. She trusts him.”

At that moment, Kali comes out of the bedroom. No doubt she heard the conversation. She’s shaking her head side to side. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. By doing that, you’re putting your family in danger.”

“Kali is my family!” he all but yells into the phone.

“I know, Nico. But I don’t want to get your wife and daughter mixed up in this. Do they have protection right now?” I haven’t talked to Kali about it, but I wonder if Miles’s twin has a way of getting to them. Even though my gut tells me they went for Kali because she was easy to find and hence the easy target.

“They’re always protected.” Nico’s voice is low and lethal, and right now, I know exactly how he feels.

“Kali is being followed. Someone is wanting to hurt her, and I don’t want to take that to your wife and daughter. You called me to protect your sister-in-law. That’s what I’m doing.”

Kali is leaning up against the opposite counter right in front of me. She has one of my T-shirts in her hands, and she’s clenching it so tightly her knuckles are turning white.

Nico takes a deep breath, and it’s loud through the speakers of the phone. “Fine. Who’s after her? Is this one of the many assholes she’s dating?”

Kali flushes, and her face turns red. Her eyes won’t meet mine. She didn’t appear to me like someone that dated a lot. As a matter of fact, she’s seemed almost shy and innocent around me. Especially when I’ve caught her staring at me. She turns away, embarrassed.

“My guy is digging into it right now.” Dylan is the best at what he does. I’m sure he’s already tracked the twin and knows exactly where he’s at.

“Fine. I’ll have my guy do the same. I’m in Belize for a few more days. I’ll be in Tennessee to pick her up as soon as I get back into the States.”

I want to argue with him. I want to tell him that a few days is not enough time for me to get to know her better, but of course I’m not going to say it. “Fine.”

Nico starts going over the safety detail I have at my house, and I don’t blame him. He wants to know his sister-in-law is safe. When we get into the discussion, Kali walks off toward her bedroom, and I try not to watch her hips sway back and forth as she goes.

“Knox, you still there?”

I clear my throat. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

Kali

I takeway longer in the shower than I should. I kept replaying the day in my head, over and over. I should probably be more worried about the man that’s after me, but what I can’t stopthinking about is Knox. He’s unlike any man I’ve ever known. Well, that’s not quite true. He’s protective like Nico and Carter and the rest of the Haven Team, but there’s never been a man make me feel the way he does.

When I’m finally dried off, I pull Knox’s shirt over my head. He had a pair of shorts that are big in the waist, but it seems my hips are going to at least keep them up.

I stand in the doorway of the room I’m staying in and watch Knox in the kitchen. He’s cooking now, moving around like he does this all the time. I wouldn’t have taken him for a man that cooked.

As if feeling my gaze on him, he lifts his head, and his eyes round as he looks at me. “Hey, I hope you’re hungry.”

I nod and walk into the kitchen. “What can I do to help?”

He shakes his head. “Have a seat. It’s ready. I hope you like spaghetti. I had some frozen sauce, so it was the easiest.”

I nod my head, still trying to wrap my head around this alpha, no doubt lethal man cooking dinner. I sit down at the table as he brings the last items to the table. I inhale deeply. “It smells good.”

He smiles and serves me up a big platter of food. I laugh. “That’s way too much.”

He shrugs. “Humor me. I bet you haven’t eaten in a while.”

I try to remember when I ate last, and I think it was on the bus to Tennessee that I ate a pack of crackers I’d found in the bottom of my tote bag.

I twirl the spaghetti on my fork and take a bite. I moan instantly as the taste hits my tongue. “Yum, that’s good.”

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