Page 92 of Deceptive Lies

Naked.

That hadn't even hit him yet.

He’d been too focused on the gun at her head.

“Here.”

Looking over his shoulder, Cooper saw Cade approaching with a blanket in his arms. While the rest of them had been standing around watching the professor bleed out, his big brother must have returned to the car and retrieved the blanket to wrap Willow in. Why was he not surprised that of all of them, Cade was the one to note this seeminglysmall thing but one that would be huge to Willow, and take steps to rectify it?

Cade was always taking care of all of them, he just did it with a perpetual scowl on his face.

“Her hands are a mess, and I’ll have to check them out more closely when I clean them, but nothing looks too deep,” Cole pronounced as he set Willow’s hands on her stomach.

“We need to decide how we’re going to handle the fallout,” Jake reminded them all. “We’re here with Prey’s blessing but still have a dead world-renowned Egyptologist. Are we going to take responsibility for the kill? Willow’s article hasn’t run yet, and I’m sure she’s going to want to include everything that he did to her in it.”

“She’ll keep our names out if we want her to,” Cooper immediately interjected. None of them would stand in the way of everything Willow had achieved, she deserved to take all the credit, but he knew she’d also respect whatever they decided.

“Never doubted she would,” Jake assured him. “I was just thinking it could work to our advantage to have it known that we’re onto whoever Mahmoud was working with. If we claim involvement in what went down then we make it harder for them to try to take us out because it would paint too big a bullseye on them, draw too much attention their way. At the same time, it would make them nervous, maybe make them slip up. Could be the only way to get the answers we all need.”

That all made sense, and Cooper knew they were going to have to sit down and talk about all of it.

But not now.

Now he had to focus on Willow.

“I’m fine with whatever you guys choose. Right now, I just want to get Willow home,” he told his brothers as he started walking toward the vehicle.

Priorities.

The word had been echoing in his mind from the moment he stepped foot in Egypt. When he’d come there it was for the express purpose of getting whatever intel he could out of Mahmoud. As soon as he’d spotted the figure draped in black sitting in the cornerof the professor’s kitchen, his priorities had been torn. But as soon as he rescued Willow, and got to know her, those priorities had shifted once again.

Now they were the woman he held tight against his chest.

This was what his mom would want him to do. As much as she would be proud of all of them for fighting to clear her name—something he still intended to do—she also knew that what mattered most in life were the people you loved.

As he slid into the back seat of the SUV, Willow moaned slightly, and as he settled her on his lap her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks. Dark bruises of exhaustion were painted under her eyes, blending in with those caused by fists. The mottled blues, blacks, greens, and yellows gave her a washed out, sickly look, and he was overcome by a need to just lock her away someplace safe for the next few months, so she had nothing to worry about but recovering and regaining her strength.

“Cooper?” she murmured, struggling to get her eyes open all the way.

“Right here, honey.” Dipping his head, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. The sight of blood on her soft skin made him nauseous and he tucked the blanket tighter around her to cover as much of it as he could.

“Professor Mahmoud … is he … dead?” she asked, finally managing to pry open her eyelids and look up at him.

“Yeah, honey, he’s dead. He can't ever hurt you again,” he assured her. While he would have settled for taking the professor into custody, would have made sure he was personally in charge of the interrogation so he got the answers on his mom his family needed, Cooper was glad things had worked out as they had. Willow deserved to be able to recover without the added weight of knowing her tormentor was still out there somewhere.

“I … killed him.” Her throat worked as she visibly swallowed down her emotions and her eyes had a sheen of tears.

“I know, honey, you were magnificent.”

His words seemed to surprise a laugh out of her and some of the horror disappeared from her gaze along with the tears swimming in those turquoise depths. “Thank you,” she murmured as she snuggled closer. “Can't seem to keep my eyes open.”

“Then don’t, honey. Your body knows what it needs, don’t fight it. Sleep,” he urged.

“Are you … I'm not sure … what happens now?” she asked vulnerability evident in the way she kept her face tucked against his neck.

“Now, we drive to the airfield, get on a plane and fly back home. You go straight to a hospital where a doctor will check you out. You’ll take as long as it takes to allow your body and your mind to heal. And I’m guessing you write your article and show the whole world just how magnificent you are and how you singlehandedly brought down an entire terrorist cell.”

“And what about you?” she whispered.

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