Page 45 of Damned
Chapter Twenty
Saying goodbye to Robin frightened the heck out of Bree. What if she never saw her sweet baby girl again? She couldn’t bear the thought. Losing Robin would be the end of her. Bree would never recover, and she wouldn’t be just broken. She’d be one of the walking dead.
Kruze drove miles without either of them speaking. What could she say to bridge the chasm between them? As much as she wanted to love him, Kruze was right. She was just another job, and he was still the womanizer who’d walked out on her in Paris. He might adore his daughter, but he was best at short-term commitments. Like that one-night stand in Paris, which wasn’t much different than the amount of time they’d spent together in Turkey. Both were short-lived, fraught with recklessness, over and done. Lord, he hadn’t checked on her, not once since she’d been home. He hadn’t called to see if she was okay, not even while she’d been in the hospital. Why chase after someone who couldn’t be bothered to follow up on the woman he’d saved? The woman he’d gotten pregnant? As good as he was at his job, Kruze was careless with what mattered most—her heart.
An argument had waged inside her head since the moment he’d tapped on her car last night. While Kruze was definite eye-candy, Bree needed more than just some handsome Navy SEAL to drop into her life, rescue her, then wave goodbye while he dashed away and left her behind. She needed a man, a real man, one who’d stay. While Kruze was all-male wrapped in a glorious, to-die-for body, he was still a playboy at heart. A lady killer. He was Peter Pan, one of the lost boys who never grew up.
It was mid-afternoon when he finally pulled into the parking lot of a small airstrip and brought the vehicle to a full stop. No other cars were in the lot, and the airstrip only sported a single hangar. Except for the small aircraft waiting on the lonesome runway behind a chain-link barrier, the place was deserted.
“What’s next?” Bree asked wearily. Stepping out of her dad’s vehicle, she snagged Kruze’s jacket before it got left behind.
“We’re headed north. Leaving your dad’s ride here.” Kruze had his gear bag, another bag, and her backpack out of the vehicle. “Bruce will store it until we get back,” he said as he waved at whoever was in the plane. Had to be Bruce.
“Is he a pilot?”
“Yes, ma’am. Bruce Roman’s former Air Force. He was an F-16 pilot.”
“How far north?” That seemed like something Kruze should’ve already told her.
“Maine. You ready?”
Bree stalled. “Maine? That’s so far from… everything.”
“That’s the point. Where do you think Robin and your parents are?”
“In a hotel?” That was where witnesses in protective custody ended up on TV. Of course, most of them died before the show ended, but—
“Try again.” Kruze stuck his chin at the plane. “They’re on their way to New Mexico, sugar. Stewart’s taking them entirely out of the equation, same as I’m doing with you. The farther you and your family are from NYC and Berfende, if he’s even there, the better off you’ll be. Let’s hit it. Time’s wasting.”
“But I was going back to work next week.”
“And now you’re not. Move out.”
Bree stopped walking. Tired of playing his game, she tipped her face to the sky, frustrated with everything. “This is all very high-handed of you,Mister Sinclair.”
“Already told you, sugar. I’m an ass. Get used to it.”
And enough! “You should’ve told me you were sending Robin with my parents. That… That… Never mind. This is my life you’re running. At least tell me what the plan is!”
He back-stepped just enough to grab hold of her elbow and pull her forward and alongside him. “My plan is to keep you and Robin safe.”
“I am not just a job!” And now her voice was shrill again.
“You’re right, which is why we need to get moving.”
What did that mean? Bree was barely keeping up with the pace he’d set, but there was no sense arguing. She hadn’t the strength, and Kruze was probably right. He was an ass, and she wasn’t up to the energy of New York City. She wasn’t ready to face Harvey Lantz, either. She needed more time and enough brain-power to dig into what had happened inside Turkey. The disquiet she’d felt then told her to trust her instincts now, that her boss had something to do with those rebels.
Oddly, Lantz hadn’t reached out to her since she’d returned home. Yet he was the reason she’d accepted what should’ve been the single, most thrilling assignment of her life. He’d personally invited her to his office. Why hadn’t he sent anyone to personally check on her, to at least do a follow-up story? Most other networks had carried the news of her miraculous rescue by an unnamed former military operator. They wanted interviews. Why didn’t Lantz?
All she’d received from anyone atUSA Timeline was one email from Jocelyn, Lantz’s personal assistant, urging Bree to take as much time as she needed to recover. Lantz hadn’t even run the article she’d sent to Damon Vick.That Lantz could be so indifferent was too much to think about. Bree needed to do some investigative reporting before she confronted him. But to do that, she had to get her head back in the game.
Numbly, she let Kruze steer her to the plane, still holding his jacket like some lovesick cheerleader tagging behind the hotshot quarterback. When he gestured her into the plane, Bree climbed aboard and sat directly in the seat behind the pilot, who, interestingly, stood up and left as soon as she settled in.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” Bruce ducked his head in acknowledgment on his way out. The plane only had the one door, which seemed unsafe to Bree. Shouldn’t there be another exit in case of emergency or fire or something?
Too tired to think, she tucked her feet under the pilot’s seat and set Kruze’s jacket beside her. There were four more seats, plus the co-pilot and pilot seats. She twisted her knees to the side to give him more room.
Still standing outside the plane, Kruze tossed her backpack in, then set his bags at her feet. Undoing the straps of one bag, he withdrew a worn, black leather double holster. Shrugging it over his shoulders, he pulled out two black pistols next and tucked them into the holster’s cups that were now located below his arms. A knife went into one of his boots, which she hadn’t noticed he was wearing until then. He strapped another holster around his thigh.
