CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Part of Jenna wished it was dark inside the cabin, so she wouldn’t feel so exposed. The other part of her was glad it was light, so she could take in every solid inch of him, commit this moment to crystal-clear, ultra-sharp memory. Her hand shook as she reached for him. She’d wanted this for a very long time.
“You nervous?” he said as he raised her shaking hand to his lips and kissed her palm.
“A little.” Her pitch was off, sounding more like her fifteen-year-old self waiting for her first kiss.
“I won’t hurt you.”
“I know. That’s not what I’m nervous about.”
He snugged her up against him, his hands running down to the small of her back. His arousal was trapped between their bodies. Before she lost her nerve, she slid a hand down his belly, brushed the tips of her fingers down the silky length of him.
Closing his eyes, he hissed in a breath. When he opened them again, he said, “Then what are you nervous about?”
Emboldened by his response to her touch, she reached down and cupped his balls, held the weight of them in her hands, before encircling his tip with her fingers and starting a slow, sensual slide south. He muttered a curse, wrapped his arms tighter around her, and pressed his forehead to hers.
“I don’t want to do this wrong,” she said.
He buried his head in the crook of her shoulder, nipped at the tender flesh there, and whispered in her ear, “There’s no wrong way to do this. If it feels good, it’s right. And, baby, what you’re doing there…feels so right.”
He stepped away, and she muffled the whine of displeasure, but he brought her over to the bed and tugged her down beside him.
“Can I… be on top?” The tips of her ears heated until she thought they’d spontaneously combust. The light breeze that blew through the cabin stoked them and made them burn hotter. In the silence, she heard the high-pitched whistle of the meadow larks, and overhead, something skittering across the roof. Why didn’t he say something? He looked at her like he’d vapor-locked. “Or not.”
“Ah…” He kissed the corner of her mouth, nibbled at her bottom lip. “The thought of you riding me…those thighs wrapped—” He shook his head as if to rattle the words free. “You on top is good.”
She smiled, liking the idea of being in control, of being the one to drive him crazy. She pushed him back against the pillows, and with his hands on her hips, he guided her across his lap.
When she settled over the top of him, his hands roamed over her flat belly, and the muscles beneath quivered, bringing a heated smile to his face. He cupped her breasts, giving them a gentle squeeze and rubbing his thumbs over her nipples until they peaked.
She arched her back, seeking the pressure, the pleasure, and scooted forward, his erection beneath her. She rubbed up against him. He groaned. Jenna lay forward along his torso. Admired the contrast of his hard muscles and smooth skin. Liked having their bodies pressed together, the weight of her breasts between them.
Then she remembered his bruising and went to sit back up, but his arms held her tight. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I was afraid I was hurting your chest.”
“Only in a good way.”
She settled against him again. He cupped the back of her head, holding her in place, kissing her, his mouth telling her what his body wanted to do. The thrust of his tongue, the slide. It only emphasized what she’d been missing, what she wanted. So far, she was quite the fan of foreplay, but right now, she wanted the real deal.
She broke the kiss, resting her weight on her forearms. “Not that I want to rush things, but…”
He brushed his hand over the covers and came up with the box and a smile. “Need help with those?”
She searched for the directions. “Number one: Start with—”
He laughed and grabbed them back. “Let me—”
“Kidding.” She held her hand out. “Gimme.”
With a dubious look, he handed them over.
He placed one hand behind his head, while the other traced lazy circles at the juncture of one of her thighs. The motion worked like piling dry tinder on a smoldering fire. Deep in her belly sat a heaviness. A want. A need that began and ended with this man lying beneath her.
The box gave her fits. Quinn’s grin grew wider and wider, enjoying her unraveling composure. When she was about to just say screw it and go without, he grabbed the box out of her hand and tore one corner off with his teeth.
He spat out the shred and handed it back to her. “Try that.”
She laughed and kissed him on the lips. “My hero.” She tore the box open, taking out the ribbon of condoms and ripping one off the bottom. Fingers fumbling, she opened the package with minor foolishness and covered him.
She rose above him and used a hand to press him to her entrance.
“Uh…Jenn—”
“Is this where you ask me if I’m sure I want to do this?”
“Oh, hell no. This is where I tell you to take it slow and eas—”
She didn’t have the time or the patience for that. In one fluid motion, she buried him to the hilt, and they both froze. He gripped her hips, and with the pads of his fingers pressing into her flesh, he held her still. Full, so full. The sensation squeezed the air from her lungs and the thoughts from her head.
She went to move, and he shook his head. His eyes closed, the strain on his face tight. “Give me a second,” he said. He breathed out a few times. Then opened his eyes and smiled up at her. “You feel so damn good.”
“Tower, this is Jenna, permission to take off,” she teased.
He huffed out a laugh and eased his grip on her hips. “Permission granted.”
Careful to avoid his bruising, Jenna balanced her hands on his chest and started moving her hips. She started slow, but quickly built up speed. He met her thrust for thrust, his hands all over her hips, her belly, her breasts.
Inside, the tension built and revved. A tingling low in her core, heating, heating. She arched her back, her hands on his knees, the sweet, wet friction, the slap of skin, the deep moans of pleasure from her. From him.
Close. So close.
“Come on, baby,” he ground out, his hand reaching down between them. She rode him hard, grinding her clit into the pad of his thumb. Her body trembled; her breath came in short, raspy pulls. Then her body clenched around him, and she soared.
“Holy hell. That’s it,” he said. “Fly, baby. Fly.”
She could almost feel the wind in her hair, the freedom, the complete abandonment of everything keeping her earthbound.
Aftershocks made her descent enticingly turbulent, and moments before landing, he flipped her onto her back. The mangled condom box dug into her shoulder, but she didn’t care. He gripped her hips and pumped into her, hard and fast and steady. His breathing went ragged, and he stiffened above her, the strain on his face exquisite.
He pulsed inside her. His heartbeat. His life. She’d never been so connected to another human being. This oneness surrounded and protected and consumed, all at the same time.
Spent, he collapsed on top of her, his weight and warmth welcomed. She traced her fingers down the muscles along his spine, his skin slick with sweat, his heart drumming against her chest.
As he caught his breath, he raised up on his forearms and kissed her chin, her lips. “That”—he ground against her, the friction sending aftershocks through her body and rippling her skin with goose bumps—“was amazing.”
She kissed him back, tightening her internal muscles around him.
“Holy, holy, holy motherf—” He held his breath until she had mercy and released him. “Jesus.” He rained kisses down on her cheek, her chin, her collarbone, his scruff sending tingles along her nerve endings.
He kissed the end of her nose, his breath and hers more even now. “So, any regrets?”
“Only that I waited this long. But if I hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been with you. So…thank you.”
He chuckled. “Don’t thank me. Wasn’t like it was all hard labor and MREs.”
She pressed against him, chasing the pleasure. He started to stiffen inside of her. Squeezing one spectacularly firm ass cheek, she said, “Speaking of hard labor…”
He covered her mouth with his, sweeping his tongue inside before pulling back, a grin on his face. “Ready for your second flight, pilot?”
She grinned back. “Practice makes pleasure perfect.”
“Well, if you got the time.”
Time. Pepita! She’d totally forgotten about picking her up. Jenna glanced at her watch. Still two o’clock. What the—? Her watch had stopped. She pushed him off of her, and scrambled out of bed. “What time is it?”
“My phone’s in my jeans.”
She found his clothes and dug out his cell. “Oh my God. I was supposed to pick her up fifteen minutes ago.”
* * * *
Quinn rolled off the bed, disposed of the condom, and slipped on his jeans, commando-style. “Why the panic? I thought you were picking her up at her friend’s house.”
“Sidney texted earlier. Said there was a change in plans. She’s at the diner with her friends in Elk Creek.”
Jenna stuffed her boobs into her bra and her feet into her boots, then bolted out the door. Quinn caught up.
“I’ll drive,” he said. “Kurt’s car is closer.”
She complied. Quinn had the car started and had begun backing up by the time she slammed the passenger door shut.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure she’s fine. The kids will probably just hang out until you pick her up.”
“Sure.” But Jenna wasn’t really paying attention to what he’d said. Her left knee bounced faster than a jackrabbit hopped up on speed.
He stomped on the gas. The tires spun, and the rear end slid, spitting gravel. A cloud of dust swirled in their wake like jet wash as they raced up the dirt road and sped toward town.
Jenna kept glancing at her watch. Which went to show how frazzled she felt, because it wasn’t like her watch had started running again on its own.
It was like time had stood still while they’d made love.
Made. Love.
That was what it had been. Even knowing it would be that way, he’d been ill-prepared for the profound effect it had on him.
It was like all the women he’d slept with before had been a child’s stick-figure drawing compared to Jenna in full, 1080p Technicolor glory.
There was no comparison. Not the same ballpark, continent, world, universe.
How could he ever go back to a black-and-white existence when he knew what waited for him in this new world?
“Can’t you go any faster?”
He glanced down at the speedometer. “I’m already twenty over the limit. Hang tight. We’re close.”
Quinn slowed but didn’t stop at the only blinking red light in Elk Creek. A block later, he pulled into the diner’s parking lot. Jenna had the door open and was jumping out before he’d even come to a complete stop.
“Wait up,” he hollered, but she shot up the steps of the diner and yanked the door open. He jogged to catch up.
She skidded to a stop by the register. A few people were eating at the diner’s counter, and a group of four kids—two girls and two boys about Pepita’s age—sucked on shakes and chomped fries at a back table by the converted train’s front window.
But no Pepita.
Jenna faltered. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go ask those kids if they know where she is.”
She didn’t say anything, but her feet moved in the kids’ general direction. “Hey,” she said when she got to the table. “Is one of you named Tarkin?”
The kids looked at each other as if deciding whether or not they should answer. Then a skinny kid with short black hair and a T-shirt that read, I think like a proton and stay positive, half-raised his hand. “Um…I’m Tarkin.”
“I’m Jenna. I’m supposed to be picking up Pepita. Her mother said she was at the diner with you.”
“She was,” he said as he chomped on another fry. “We waited outside until her dad picked her up about ten minutes ago.”
The other kids nodded in agreement.
“See?” Quinn said. “You were worried about nothing. Come on, let’s head back.”
Near the exit, she stopped and went back to the table. She pulled out her phone and thumbed through her photos until she came to one with Pepita, Sidney, and Boomer standing on the porch of the cabin. All three were dressed and pressed with their picture-perfect smiles on. She pinched the picture, zoomed in on Boomer’s face, and handed it to Tarkin. “Is this the man who picked her up?”
The boy reached the bottom of his shake and his straw gurgled. He shook his head.
“You sure?”
He nodded. The other kids looked at the picture.
A blond girl said, “No. The guy who picked her up looked like her.”
Quinn had a queasy feeling in his stomach, like he’d eaten all the fries and drunk all the shakes. “What do you mean, he looked like her?”
The kids eyeballed each other again. “You tell him,” the blond girl said to Tarkin.
“You know,” Tarkin said, his voice a bad stage whisper. He brushed his hand along his cheek. “His skin was brown like hers.”
Jenna’s face went white. The change wasn’t slow or gradual. One second she had color; the next she made ghosts look like they had Hawaiian tans.
She held her hand out, and the kids returned the phone. She thumbed through her photo album until she got to a pencil drawing of a man’s face.
Like a police sketch.
Quinn lost the breath in his lungs, and he placed a hand on the back of the booth to steady himself. Jenna handed the phone over again.
“I think that’s him,” Tarkin said.
“Lemme see,” the blond girl said, taking the phone. “No, the guy we saw had a mustache.”
A girl with red hair and a green tank top took the phone next. “Tarkin’s right. That was him.”
“Was not,” the blond girl said.
The other boy shrugged, not caring much about anything that didn’t have to do with the food in front of him.
“Can you four stay here a few minutes?” Jenna asked them.
They all glanced at each other again, and nods went around. “Sure,” Tarkin said for the group.
Jenna pushed Quinn toward the register and leaned in close as if she didn’t want anyone to overhear. “Call the sheriff and get him down here.” Her breath came rapid and shallow, on the cusp of hyperventilation. “I’ve got to call Sidney.”
Though it didn’t seem possible, Jenna suddenly grew paler. He sat her in an empty booth and pushed her head between her legs before she passed out. “Deep breaths, Jenn.”
She tried to sit up, but he kept his hand on the back of her neck until her breathing slowed. Finally letting her up, he got down on one knee in front of her and brushed the hair out of her face. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She fumbled with her phone, but managed to press Sidney’s number on speed dial. When Sidney picked up, Jenna said, “Come to the diner right now. El Verdugo has Pepita.”
* * * *
“I want to know how this happened. In broad fucking daylight.” If Boomer’s red face was any indication, he was only about two blood-pressure points shy of stroking out.
And it was all Jenna’s fault.
Her chest squeezed, squeezed, squeezed. So tight she couldn’t take a deep breath, though everyone told her to do so. Stars danced in her peripheral vision; black spots, too. She stuck her head between her knees again and tried to breathe. Quinn’s hand rubbed her back, providing a silent strength, even if his hand shook a little.
“You need to sit down, Boomer,” the sheriff said.
She glanced up as Boomer leveled a murderous gaze at St. John. “What I need is my daughter back.”
“Technically,” Finn cut in, “she’s a ward of the state.”
Boomer’s hand lashed out, grabbed a fistful of Finn’s shirt.
Soto pushed between them. To Finn, she said, “For a guy with an IQ over one-sixty, you’re an idiot.”
Finn raised his hands, and Boomer let him go.
St. John said, “My deputies are working hard to find her.”
“Oh great. Fine.” Boomer ran his hands through his hair and turned to Sidney, his sarcasm thick as delta mud. “Isn’t that great, Irish? The sheriff’s working on that.”
“Bryan—”
Boomer took her arm and started pushing his way toward the conference room door. Past Finn and Soto and Mac and Hank. Boomer’s hand gripped the handle when the sheriff said, “Where the hell are you going?”
Boomer yanked the door open, shaking off the steadying grip Hank put on his shoulder. “To find my daughter.”
“One step,” the sheriff said, his tone level, but the warning ringing clear. “You take one step out that door, and I’ll have you both arrested.”
“What the hell for?”
“Obstruction of justice. I have better things to do than worrying about you going off half-cocked and screwing up the investigation.”
Hank put a hand on the center of Boomer’s chest. “You’ll do her no good in jail. You know that.”
Boomer let Sidney pull him back to the table, and he flopped into a seat. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a couple of deep breaths. His color improved. The scowl etched across his features didn’t.
With a hand on her husband’s shoulder, Sidney addressed Finn, Soto, and St. John. “What do you know?”
Finn was the first to answer. “After interviewing the kids, we now have a description of the truck, an older white Chevy pickup—”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Boomer said. At this rate, Jenna figured Boomer would have to skip the cuss jar and just buy Pepita’s saddle outright. Would be cheaper. “That narrows the likely suspects in the county by about four.”
“Quit,” Sidney chided.
Boomer clenched his jaw and slid farther down in his seat, but he shut up.
Finn eyed Boomer, and when he was apparently satisfied that Boomer would hold his tongue, the agent continued, “Wyoming plates, but from the partial the kids noticed, we suspect they were stolen off another vehicle.”
“Was she hurt? Did she try to fight them?” Sidney asked.
Jenna admired Sidney’s composure. Sidney was focused on the problem and finding a solution. Jenna didn’t know how she did that. Jenna would be in pieces. Hell, she was in pieces.
“As far as we know, she’s unhurt,” Agent Soto said. Bright purple eye shadow and thick eyeliner made her brown eyes look larger. She had on Finn’s FBI jacket over an even more vivid purple form-hugging Lycra dress. “From what the kids said, El Verdugo pulled up, told her to get in. No fight. No argument.”
There weren’t enough chairs in the room. Mac leaned against one of the walls. “Why wouldn’t she run? Surely she recognized El Verdugo. Even with the mustache.”
“He called her hija,” Finn added.
Sidney glanced at Boomer for translation.
“Daughter,” he said. All the fight left Boomer’s body. And Sidney looked like she’d taken a couple body blows from Mike Tyson.
“Do you think El Verdugo is Pepita’s father?” The words came out of Sidney’s mouth, but the way she said it, the way she looked from St. John to Finn to Soto, she was hoping, waiting, for them to deny it.
Boomer blew out a breath. “Makes sense.”
“It’s an avenue we’ve considered,” St. John allowed.
“Since when?” Boomer’s eyes narrowed at the sheriff. “Why is this the first we’ve heard of this? How many times have you guys questioned Pepita? The therapists? The psychologists? How did this never come to our attention?”
“Your daughter is very smart.” Finn got a nod of acknowledgment from Boomer. “She knew you were looking for relatives. We believe she feared being sent back. So she pretended not to know who her father was.”
Soto added, “The men captured four years ago said that they didn’t know who her parents were. We suspect they did but were too afraid of El Verdugo to tell us.”
“The lab had linked Pepita’s DNA to someone at the camp, but without a known sample from El Verdugo there was no way to match them. It was a dead end.”
Boomer nodded his head as the words sank in. He reached a hand to his shoulder and gave Sidney’s hand a squeeze. “We’d always wondered how a girl as young as Pepita managed to survive in the cartel’s camp without someone hurting her, abusing her. If El Verdugo was her father, it would fit. To touch her would have meant a death sentence.”
Jenna asked, “How would El Verdugo know where to find her?”
“It wasn’t a secret that we had her,” Sidney said. “It was even on the news early on, when we were searching for her parents. Maybe he’d been planning all along to come back for her.”
“Put us back in there,” Quinn said. “We can help.”
Finn smoothed the wrinkles on the front of his shirt. “That’s a bad idea.”
“You got anyone else who can get near them right now. Today?” Quinn refused to let it drop.
“There’s a good chance they know you have connections with the Lazy S. It could make it that much more dangerous for you.”
“We don’t care,” Jenna said.
Sidney gave her a sad, appreciative smile. “We can’t let you do that.”
“Jenna stays. Quinn can do it,” Boomer said. He apparently had no qualms about sacrificing Quinn for Pepita.
“If Quinn goes, I go.”
“Jenna,” Hank said. “You need to sit this one out.”
Sit this one out? Jenna jumped out of her seat and turned to her father. “It’s my fault she was taken. I can’t sit it out.” Her voice cracked, and she swiped at the dampness on her cheeks. To Sidney and Boomer, she said, “We’ll get her back.”
Sidney said, “It’s not your fault.”
Boomer’s lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t believe Sidney for a minute, but he respected Hank enough not to say it out loud, even if it was what everyone believed.
It was the truth.
If Jenna hadn’t been naked in Quinn’s bed, if she hadn’t been late, none of this would have happened.
That sense of dread that had seeded and germinated in her belly grew gnarly roots, digging into her soul and siphoning the life out of her, growing bigger and stronger ounce by ounce as she grew weaker and weaker.
“What do you say, Agent Finn?” Jenna focused on him. He ran the task force. Finn was the person to convince. “Put us back out there. We have to at least try.”
Finn glanced around. St. John shrugged. Soto raised her brows and made a what-do-we-have-to-lose? face. Finn blew out a breath. “Fine. Go home. Clean up. Wait for Soto to contact you with details.”
Jenna ran her hands over her mussy hair and wished to hell she’d remembered her cowboy hat. Glancing down, she noticed she’d snapped her shirt all wrong. Great.
Everyone filed out of the room. Quinn held back. “You coming?” Jenna asked.
“Be right there.”
“Bryan,” Sidney said. “Let’s go.”
“Give me a minute.” Boomer’s eyes never left Quinn’s.
Jenna and Sidney went to leave, but before Jenna closed the door, Mac stuck her head back in. “You boys behave yourselves.”
* * * *
You boys behave yourselves. Mac’s words bounced around the near-empty conference room at the sheriff’s office, in Quinn’s head. Not gonna happen. Boomer was itching for a fight.
“We’re okay.” Boomer’s unforgiving tone said otherwise. Boomer put one hand on the doorknob and the other on top of Mac’s head. She let him push her out of the room. He closed the door. He felt for a lock, but there wasn’t one.
Shame, Quinn thought. He was itching for a fight, too.
“We’ll find her,” Quinn said.
Boomer crossed his arms over his chest. He was taller, more muscular than Quinn. Stronger. Madder. Quinn would put up a fight, but he didn’t kid himself into thinking he’d come out on top.
“You damn well better.” Boomer stepped up to him, invading Quinn’s personal space. “What the hell were you two thinking?”
Before Quinn could reply, Boomer went on. “Oh, that’s right. You weren’t thinking, at least not with your big head.”
Quinn moderated his tone as his anger rose. “You need to be very careful what you say next, buddy.” But Quinn wasn’t sure his words came close to registering.
“While you two were screwing around, my daughter was kidnapped.”
“Look—”
“Don’t bother denying it. Jenna’s hair is all messed up. Her shirt is untucked, snapped all wrong. The stink of sex on the both of you. While you were fuck—”
Quinn’s temper flashed. His fist flew. He connected with Boomer’s jaw with a satisfying smack. Pain shot up from his knuckles to his shoulder. Hitting a slab of granite might have hurt less.
Boomer caught himself on the table and rubbed his hand over his jaw.
Mac popped her head back in the room. “Everything good here?”
Boomer grunted. Quinn gave her a curt nod.
The door closed and Boomer said, “That’s your one free shot.”
“We’ll get her back,” Quinn said again.
“See that you do.”
Boomer left, and Quinn gave him a couple minutes to clear the building. The door opened, and Jenna stepped in. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself.” He walked over to her. Ran his fingers through her messy hair and straightened the mis-snapped snaps on her shirt. Her eyes were red and her complexion blotchy, but she was still so damn beautiful.
He kissed her forehead and pulled her in tight, holding her head to his chest. “It’s going to be okay, Jenn.”
“I can’t believe I left her there. If I’d been paying attention, I would have noticed my watch had stopped, and this would never have happened.”
He took a step back and tipped her chin up with his finger. “You don’t know that. If the Hangman hadn’t taken her now, he would have found her another time.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t take the guilt away.”
* * * *
“I can’t believe we’re back here,” Jenna said as she and Quinn slid into a booth opposite each other at Cruisers. Kurt’s dog tags, which she’d slipped into her bra for good luck, had warmed against her skin. She didn’t have the energy to pretend to play pool, and the beer in front of her was too tempting to pour down a drain or into a potted plant, even if there’d been one nearby.
“Hopefully for the last time.”
They both took a short pull from their beers. They weren’t about to get drunk, but half a beer, to take the edge off, after the crap day they’d had? Damn straight.
There were more people in Cruisers than there had ever been before. Only a few empty stools at the bar. A few tables here and there were unoccupied. The pool table was crowded with biker dudes who barely knew the front end of the cue from the back end, but that didn’t stop their fun.
Quinn reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Hang tight. This will be over before—”
Quinn’s gaze went to the door, and Jenna turned. Moose and a couple of his guys strode into the bar, not as if they owned the place, but as if they owned the place and everyone inside it, too. Moose spotted them and headed straight over, motioning with his hand. One guy slid in next to Quinn, and the other next to her.
Moose stole a chair from beneath a guy at the table behind him, spun it around backward, and sat. He rested his arms on the back of the chair. “You’re looking to buy?”
“Quality is good.” Quinn slid Moose a piece of paper with quantities of the drugs they wanted and the hundred thousand dollars they—well, the task force—was willing to pay.
Moose’s brows went up. “You don’t mess around.”
“I have a lot of demand. But even for me, that’s a lot of cash. I want to meet the guy I’m dealing with if I’m spending that kind of money.”
“You’re looking at him.”
“Dude.” Quinn gave Moose a don’t-shit-a-shitter smile.
Moose held his gaze for a long moment and left the table. By the time he returned, Jenna had drained all her beer. Moose plopped a bar napkin facedown on the table and slid it over to Quinn. “Tonight. Nine p.m. That address. Come alone. We’ll be watching. Don’t be late.”
Quinn nodded his head. “Nine it is.”
Moose stepped back and motioned for his men to follow. To the guy next to Jenna, he said, “Her, too.”
Jenna’s heart double-tapped in her chest as if Vader had nailed her with his back hooves. She struggled to breathe, and her eyes darted to Quinn. From the back of the bar near the pool tables, somebody laughed, but this was no joke.
“She’s not—” The guy shoved Quinn back in his seat with a firm hand on his shoulder, and a gun to Quinn’s ribs. “Easy now.” To Moose, Quinn said, “What do you want with the girl?”
“Insurance,” Moose said. “My boss is cautious. That’s a lot of money, a lot of merchandise, a lot of risk. He’s looking to minimize that risk.”
“No deal, then,” Quinn said.
“Quinn, I’ll be fine.” Maybe. All she knew was she couldn’t walk away from this without finding Pepita. It was her fault Pepita had been kidnapped. No way was Jenna returning to the ranch without her.
“Listen to your woman,” Moose said.
“You can’t take her.”
“Who’s gonna stop me?”
Quinn looked around the bar. The reality was, they were on their own. Finn and Soto hadn’t predicted this issue. No one was sitting in a car waiting to pull them over and rescue her. They were waiting back at the sheriff’s office for Quinn and Jenna’s phone update.
With a shake of his head, Quinn said, “This is not cool.”
“Do as I say and you’ve got nothing to worry about. I give you my word.” Moose stuck out his hand.
After a moment, Quinn shook it. “I’m counting on you to stick to that.”
Moose didn’t bother replying as he turned and walked out the door. The guy pulled Jenna out of the booth by her arm. Quinn looked like he was about to come over the top of the table, despite the fact that the other guy still had the gun shoved against Quinn’s ribs.
“Don’t be a hero, man,” the guy said as he slid out of the booth. “You won’t do her any good dead.”