Rowdy hesitated, maybe thinking of a way to keep Pepper safe from one and all.
The sense of menace amplified, the pressure built inside Logan. “We can’t linger here, damn it. She’s a sitting duck. If anyone sees her—”
Making up his mind, Rowdy sat forward. “I’m with Logan, in his truck. You need to come with us.”
Rowdy shushed whatever argument she gave—if indeed, she argued. Logan couldn’t be sure.
“We’ll be safe, both of us, but not if you don’t get your ass over here, right now.”
Logan kept watch while Rowdy told her where to find them.
“No, stay on the line,” Rowdy said, “until I see—”
And just like that, she appeared across the street, hovering behind a bus stop shelter, her gaze watchful.
Again Rowdy tried to get out of the truck. Logan cursed as he held him back. Considering Rowdy’s size and the added strength of his emotion, it wasn’t an easy feat. “People will recognize you! Stay put, and tell her I’m coming to get her.”
Rowdy relented. “Logan is coming for you, hon. I’m in the truck waiting. Don’t you dare budge an inch.”
“Get behind the wheel,” Logan told Rowdy before leaving the truck and jogging over to Pepper.
She stood there, her hair tossed by the evening breeze, her expression wounded but her stance defiant.
In his lifetime, Logan had faced injustice of every kind. He’d dealt gently with rape victims, survivors from random shootings, the bereaved, the insane, evil and immorality.
Nothing and no one had ever leveled him like this.
As he got closer to Pepper, she took a step back, then planted her feet again. “If you hurt my brother, I swear I’ll—”
Logan grabbed her up against his chest, crushing her close, his face in her hair, his hands opened against her back.
She didn’t exactly return his embrace, but she didn’t shove him away, either. “Logan?”
He had her, and he’d be damned before he let her go again. To reassure himself that she wasn’t injured, he held her back, smoothed her hair, searched over her.
She released a broken breath. “Don’t you dare think that I—”
“We have to move. You can explain everything later.” He turned with her tucked close to his side.
“Nothing to explain.”
“Fine.” With so much confusion surrounding the area, no one appeared to pay any attention to them. But that didn’t mean they were safe. Hell, no.
He feared a sniper, another bomb, even an ambush.
Reese didn’t approach the truck, but then, he’d have enough sense not to once he saw everything unfolding. Rowdy had the truck idling as he waited for them. Logan tucked Pepper into the middle of the bench seat, then got in beside her.
“Drive.”
With the truck already in gear, Rowdy asked, “Where?”
“Out of here for now.” He fastened Pepper’s seat belt, then his own. She didn’t fight him when he took her hand.
Rowdy glanced at them both before carefully turning the truck and driving away.
Pepper took an audible breath. “I need the stuff out of the car.”
“Forget it.” Logan wanted only to get her as far away from the area as possible.
She didn’t appreciate his consideration. “No, you forget it! It’s important.”
“I see you’re recovering from your shock.” Now that he saw her unharmed, all his worry coalesced into rage. She could have been killed. She would have been killed. “What you did, coming here like this, it was incredibly reckless.”
“Yeah, well, if you hadn’t—”
“You cleared out my motel room?” Rowdy asked with an abrupt interruption.
That redirected her anger. “Yes, including the bimbo you left in the bed!”
Watching the road, Rowdy turned a corner and said, “She was a very nice girl.” And then, “Everything is in the trunk of my car?”
Deflating, Pepper crossed her arms and glared at Logan. “Yes.”
If the situation weren’t so dire, Logan could have appreciated the irony. He’d wanted Pepper to get Rowdy. Now he had Rowdy, but all he could think about was keeping Pepper out of harm’s way. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Where is the car?”
“I parked it two blocks north of the club, in the lot of a pawn shop. The keys are under the passenger seat.”
“Anything…incriminating inside?”
She turned dagger-eyes on him. “You mean, since we’re such heinous criminals and all that?”
In the face of her hostility, being reasonable wasn’t easy. “I didn’t say that.”
“Not in those exact words, maybe. But you thought it all the same.”
He gave her a quelling look that she tried to ignore. “We’ll clear all that up very soon. But for now, I meant is there anything that could be used to trace you?”
“No, I just felt like visiting Rowdy’s most recent conquest for some small talk. I mean, what better way to get my jollies, right?”
Rowdy whistled.
“Your sarcasm isn’t helping anything.”
“You’re lucky all you’re getting is sarcasm!”
Counting to ten didn’t help. “What kind of car is it, Rowdy? I’ll send Reese to take care of it.”
After Rowdy gave him the make and model, Logan withdrew his cell. “You any good at losing a tail?”