Page 7 of Grumpy Special Ops Bear: Ep. 1
He just laughed. “Too busy falling out of airplanes?”
“Something like that,” I replied. “What about you? I know that your company’s headquarters are in Manhattan. Are you a native New Yorker?”
“No. I move around a lot.”
“Hmm… Lots of traveling?”
“No. Lots of running away from the law.”
I stiffened instantly.
He just snickered. “It’s not what you think. I left home when I was young. Bounced around for a bit and got into heaps of trouble.” He nodded over in Boyle’s direction. “I met Boyle along the way. We were both headstrong and loners, so it wasn’t an easy friendship, but we had a great deal in common. Years later, here we are, two misfit millionaires sitting in the middle of nowhere, camping.”
I sat in silence, sorting through Josh’s story. A lot of it rang true, but the slivers of information he’d left out were troubling. I watched two others catch a fish each, big ones, and I shook my head.
They’ve never been fishing before, my ass.
I exhaled sharply. Maybe I was reading too much into Josh’s and his team’s behavior. Frankly, it wasn’t any of my business. As long as they had a good time and no one got hurt or killed, I’d get paid a hefty bonus at the end of the trip.
After we caught a few more fish, we headed back to the campsite and made dinner. Sitting in the firelight, I couldn’t help the laughter that slipped out at their antics and joking. They seemed more like family than coworkers, only they looked nothing alike. I glanced across the campground and grimaced when my eyes swiftly locked with Josh’s intense stare.
Shit.
He was getting creepy again. If he kept watching me like a hawk, I was going to say something, and it wouldn’t be nice.
The sun had gone down, and darkness surrounded us as the bugs came out to play. I shooed away a flying insect and caught Josh’s eyes once more. He nodded to me, and I tried to smile back, but my lips wouldn’t move.
His freaky eyes had an abnormal amber glow. I peered around the campsite and nearly choked. All their eyes were glowing. Their sheer beauty fascinated me. Suddenly my mind became cloudy, my vision fuzzy, and then my brain went blank.
I blinked at him in confusion.
Where the hell am I?
My hands trembled as my thoughts became so jumbled that the harder I tried to unravel them, the more difficult it became to clear my head.
Taking a deep, cleansing breath, I concentrated on settling my mind, and the confusion ebbed away.
What the fuck was that?
Never in my life had I experienced something so disorientating and scary. I stood up on wobbly legs. “Guys, it’s been a long day. I’m turning in early. Allow the fire to burn down to embers.”
I didn’t even wait for a response before turning on my heel and hightailing it away.
Chapter 7
Fergus
What the fuck?
I whiffed the air once more to be certain.
A human female?
I stared down at the camp.
We were high on a ridge overlooking the group. Cutter and Grant were spread out farther away. We needed an exact number, and for damn sure, we didn’t need a human in the middle of this shit.
I shook my head in disbelief.
