by Sheila Kell
“Please. I need to walk out of this hellhole,” she pleaded.
Devon looked at Matt, who nodded, and then back at his wife. “Okay. You can walk, but if you get tired or start bleeding, I’m carrying you.”
Her free hand cupped his cheek, and he leaned into the softness. Immediately, all felt right in his world.
“I love you, Devon.”
His world achieved perfection. Hearing the words was as sweet as he thought it would be. “I love you, too.”
“Great, everybody fucking loves everybody,” Trent said from the doorway. “Can we get this show on the road before the locals move the fuck in?”
With that, Matt took care of Rylee, then Kate helped her dress. And on her two feet, they walked out of Carver’s and into waiting vans. Although he guessed Rylee could make it, when she stumbled at the front door, he hoisted her into his arms and carried her to their transport.
Sitting with Rylee across his lap, Devon only half listened to the chatter over the comm system. His focus was on her. She was becoming more lucid.
“The girls?” she asked with her hands wrapped in his T-shirt.
“They’ve got them. Arthur acquired a second plane so we can take them home.”
“I want to be with them.”
“Hang the fuck on!” Mike, their driver, shouted.
Devon tensed, as did his wife. She slipped off his lap to the seat next to him that’d been left vacant. Fumbling a bit, she connected her seat belt.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
“I don’t know yet.” Focusing on the comm, he heard what they’d been trying to avoid. “Fuck,” he said. “Belize authorities are chasing us.”
The van swerved into the opposite lane to pass a car and swerved back to avoid an oncoming vehicle.
“I take it we’re not stopping.”
Reaching down, he clasped her hand in his, felt the tremble in hers, and held it tight. Rylee drugged, even if she was coming down from the effects, wasn’t the tough and strong woman he’d fallen in love with. Oh, he still loved this one, but his woman would be ready to kick some butt, not sit here with a tremble, even as slight as it was.
Another swerve and he reached to the ceiling to hold himself in place. They had three vans that needed to outrun the locals. Arthur was supposed to have cleared the way as best he could, but they knew the government didn’t approve. Hell, they might not even be real police. HIS wouldn’t be finding out.
“Drivers to your alternate routes,” Jesse stated firmly in Devon’s earpiece.
Gunfire erupted and the van careened to the right, and he slid into his wife on the left. Straightening, but keeping his head down, he asked, “Are you okay?”
Maybe the jostling was clearing her mind, because the eyes that looked back at him appeared clean and focused. “Fine. Is there a plan?”
Here they were running for what could truly be their lives, and like an idiot, he laughed, a dig deep and come up happy laugh. Thankfully no one either took notice or said a thing about it. Maybe they thought he’d lost it. Maybe he had. All he knew was he had Rylee by his side, and that was all that mattered. “With Jesse, there’s always a plan and a backup plan.”
“Listen up. Steve lost our tail so we’ll clear the airport for you. Don’t engage unless you absolutely have to. And, don’t… dilly-dally.” Jesse must be watching his language since he had the girls with him, because Devon expected something more coarse from him in that directive.
With one hand on the seat in front of him, he slipped his other out of Rylee’s and wound it around her shoulders and then pulled her snug up against him. Kissing the top of her head, he said, “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
A smile embedded itself and he couldn’t imagine it would ever go away.
“We’ve got a bit of space, sit up at your own risk,” Mike advised.
Brave, but not stupid, everyone slowly rose and peered over their shoulders to double-check Mike’s bit of space.
After much bouncing and jerking back and forth in the van, Mike warned them that they were approaching the airport. The unbuckling of Rylee’s seatbelt—as he imagined she was the only one who wore one—and the clicking of clips being released and reinserted in rifles filled the silence. When Mike slammed on the brakes, the door was slung open and Devon grasped Rylee’s hand following AJ out. His job was to get Rylee there, not worry about anything else, so they raced to the plane and with its engines ready, amidst gunfire, but from what he could tell, it was only from their men to the vehicle that had chased them.
Pushing her in front of him, he hustled her up the stairs, keeping himself plastered behind her in case their pursuers engaged and a bullet happened to make it their way.
Flinging herself into a seat on board the aircraft, Rylee bent over, working to catch her breath, and Devon sat next to her and breathed a sigh of utter relief.
His wife was safe.
A COUPLE OF months had passed, and Devon and Rylee were enjoying married life and living together. Except for her habit of ironing his jeans and the sheets. She believed everything should be pressed and that drove him nuts.
Knowing how close he came to losing her still had the power to bring him to his knees. With her now a part of HIS, he imagined he’d hyperventilate many times while she was out with the team. While he’d had his fun playing rescuer, behind the computer was where he was comfortable. It was where the team needed him.
Glancing around the room once more to make sure it was ready, he approached the bed and spread out the rose petals more. Chilling was nonalcoholic cider instead of champagne. They’d both decided they didn’t care for another alcoholic drink, and he didn’t see this occasion being any different since the first time they’d been together was the catalyst in that agreement.
He swiped the key card off the table, shoved his wallet and phone in his pockets, and exited the room. The great thing about the high-roller room was there were separate elevators for their floor and two others. Less wait time.
On the main floor, the noise was almost overpowering, but he did his best to ignore it and sought his brother. He found him at the bar in the middle of the activity of slot machines. Before approaching, he watched Matt for a few moments. Hell, another wedding for him. Another reminder of what he’d lost.
With a friendly slap on the shoulder, he slid onto the barstool beside his brother. He hailed the masculine bartender. “Bottle of water.”
With a harrumph, the man turned to, hopefully, fill Devon’s order.
“I hope you’re not going to drink that,” Matt said.
The unhappy employee returned, twisted the top off a bottle of water and slapped it in front of Devon and turned away.
He shrugged. “Not on your life. Has the bartender gone anywhere?”
Bringing a beer bottle to his lips, Matt shook his head and then appeared to take a drink, but Devon knew he’d only done it for show. Scratching at the label wrapped around the neck of the plastic bottle, he approached the touchy topic he’d wanted to discuss. “I can check in on her again if you want.”
Matt hesitated, rolling the beer bottle between his hands. “No. I said the last time would be it. I meant it.”
Devon sighed, a wash of sadness for his brother slipping through. “You really should go see her.”
“And do what? She left, remember? She blamed me and left.”
It always came back to that, and if the shoe were on the other foot, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. All he knew was that Matt had loved Caitlyn enough that they’d planned to marry. He couldn’t imagine ever giving up on Rylee. So how could Matt give up on Caitlyn? “You know she didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, she did.”
“What about her dad? You two were close. Go visit him.” Maybe then the two would run into each other even though she’d moved away.
Shifting in his seat, Matt cleared his throat. “I saw him when we were in Oxford. He invited me to come back. Promised she wouldn
’t be there.”
Big ass first step chancing that visit. Maybe there was hope for Matt after all. “Are you going?”
“I don’t know. It’s a lot to deal with.” The beer bottle spun in his hands again, and liquid sloshed over the top giving away Matt’s ruse at drinking. He stilled the bottle and began to wipe up the mess. “It was my fault.”
“Matt, you know better. You can’t guarantee you’d have been able to prevent it.”
“At least I could’ve tried.” He stood, something akin to resignation on his face. “I thought we were here to get this asshole and then get you married. Or married again.” He nodded behind Devon who turned and saw two uniformed officers walking toward them.
Allowing for the brisk change of topic, he smiled and stood. “That we are.”
“Hey, buddy,” he called to the bartender. “Can you come here a minute?”
The man looked nervously over Devon’s shoulder but approached. “What can I get ya?”
“You can get around here so these nice officers can arrest you for drugging women.” He was sickened at what the man had done—he’d drug women and then his friend lured them away where they had parties with the unsuspecting women later. Rylee had been a mark for the two of them. After they’d married, Devon and Rylee had stopped in this bar. She’d ordered the drinks while he’d gone to the restroom. He was certain that was why she felt out of sorts when they’d returned to the room. Somehow, he believed it was also responsible for her losing the entire evening because she’d been lucid while they’d enjoyed the strip—eating, gambling, wandering the streets, falling in love, and getting married.
He wanted to launch himself at the man for even thinking of hurting his wife.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
“Don’t even try to play innocent. Your buddy is already in custody, and he likes to talk.”
Fear laced the man’s eyes and he darted them around the men.
The officers stepped forward and Devon and Matt handed them their bottles. They had no idea if the man would drug men, but they weren’t taking a chance. Then, they turned away, ready for the rest of the day.
With Rylee having no memory of their first wedding and their friends having missed it, they were getting married again.
“We’d best hurry. Brad and Madison might end up strangling each other.”
Devon snorted. Truer words had never been spoken. He wouldn’t tell a soul he’d seen Madison leave Brad’s room that morning. They appeared to have a love-hate relationship.
The two brothers wove their way around gaming tables and slot machines until they stepped out on the Las Vegas Strip. He’d thought his wife would’ve chosen a traditional wedding, but, in her odd sense of humor, she said they needed to go back to where they’d started. So, they swarmed the same chapel he and Rylee had married in the first time—Graceland Wedding Chapel.
He inventoried the guests—Jesse and Kate, AJ and Megan with little Alex, Jake and Em, Brad, Matt, Madison and most of the men on the team. A slight frown appeared. If only Trent could’ve been here. He’d taken off right after they’d returned with Rylee. Helping family on the mission wasn’t the same as accepting that his parents had lied to him all his life, nor that he’d almost died doing his job. Devon would have to keep an eye on him and when it was time, they’d bring him back into the fold.
The organ began to play and everyone settled, eyes on the doorway in the rear of the room. In she walked, and his eyes almost popped out of his head. Stunning was the first word that came to mind. He’d never seen Rylee really dressed up, and in an ivory lace dress that reached about midcalf she made a fetching picture.
When she reached him, he couldn’t resist and pulled her in for a kiss. They finally broke apart when their official imparted, “We’re not at that part yet.”
Laughter bubbled up out of the two of them at their Elvis impersonator’s accent. It would be a wedding neither would forget.
You can make a difference.
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Sheila Kell writes smokin’ hot romance and intrigue. She secretly laughs when her mother, in that stern voice, calls it, “nasty.” As a self-proclaimed caffeine addict nestled in north Mississippi with three cats, she wears her pajamas most of the day and writes about the romantic men who leave women’s hearts pounding with a happily ever after built on a memorable, adrenaline-pumping story. When she isn’t writing, she can be found visiting her family, dreaming of an editor who agrees her work is perfect, or watching cartoons.
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