Page 65 of Montana Mystery

All I got was a shrill tone and a voice that told me the number had been disconnected.

Fuck.

I tried one more time, just in case, but the number was dead. The damage was done. However they’d known what we were up to, they’d gone to ground. What had tipped them off?

Behind me, shouts went up as the cops raided the barn.

Somehow, I’d fucked this up.

Again.

Chapter 21

Kate

The days slid by. I didn’t go back to Missoula, instead staying with Noah at Resting Warrior and keeping tabs on Brandon with phone and video calls.

Noah was protective. Going with me whenever I left the premises to go into town, making sure that I was never isolated or alone for too long. Was it a little overprotective?

Yes.

But I understood it. I knew it wouldn’t last forever, and remembering the terror I’d felt when I’d encountered Max and his friend in my apartment, I was grateful for it.

Aside from that, I wasn’t complaining about the fact that I got to stay in his house, where there were two adorable kittens and an abundance of amazing sex.

The first couple of days, we pretended that Noah was going to sleep on the couch. On the third day, I looked at him and asked him if he was going to come to bed. He only hesitated for a couple of seconds before following me up the stairs and showing me that he was indeed coming to bed.

But not to sleep.

It was addictive, having that at my fingertips. I was a little drunk on the feeling of going to sleep with him and waking up with him and falling beneath the sheets together and coming apart with him. Because of him.

There was not one sign of the bad guys since the night Max had pulled one over on us. Even with the two weeks we’d “bought” coming to a close, there’d been no contact to try to get us to pay more money. It seemed too good to be true.

Who was I kidding? It was definitely too good to be true. That was why both Noah and I were constantly looking over our shoulders and the reason he held me tighter at night.

Today, we were driving down to Missoula. I was out of clothes, having never finished the apartment cleanup after Max had called me that night. If there was anything left to salvage, I wanted it. That, and Brandon was well enough to leave the hospital. It was a good thing—he was practically climbing the walls with boredom.

The apartment was the first stop, and Noah went silent when we pushed in the door.

I shoved down the immediate sadness and anger at the sight of everything that was still broken. “It was worse. I managed to do some cleaning.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

Turning, I went up on my tiptoes to kiss him quickly. “I know. But we’re not staying long. At some point I need to get this cleaned all the way up and hope that I can do it enough to get some of my security deposit back.”

“They wouldn’t give it to you if you told them that you’d been violently burglarized?”

I took a breath. “Maybe. But having someone who was targeted like that in the building isn’t a great thing for them either.”

Noah looked around, and I could see thoughts on his face. He didn’t say them out loud though.

“Let me just grab some clothes.”

Brandon’s clothes were entirely destroyed, since they’d been torn apart in the search for money. Max was enough of an asshole that he probably laughed at the idea of Brandon getting out of the hospital and having nothing to wear. At least some of my stuff had survived.

I grabbed what I could. When we stopped to pick up some stuff for Brandon, I’d pick up something too. My thoughts flickered to the fact that my underwear was all utilitarian, with the exception of that one thong Noah had seen. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy that would really care if I put on fancy underwear—none of my clothes remained on once we reached the bedroom.

But the mental image of his surprise was enough to make me want it.

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