Page 12 of Lone Star Wanted
“Hollyfield Road on the edge of Mesita Springs.”
Kincade nodded. “Good, that’s not far from here. Let’s go.”
She turned onto the main road, and they sped away from the quarry, the tires humming over the asphalt. The wide Texas sky stretched above them, flat and endless, but Cassidy couldn’t shake the tight coil of unease winding in her gut.
“I think we keep our search for Travis quiet,” Kincade said after a long silence. “No more sharing intel with your boss. Or any other badge.”
She shot him a look. “After the message Travis left on that phone, you think I’m going to argue with that?”
“No,” he said, and for the first time since this ordeal began, the corner of his mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “But I had to hear you say it.”
“Then you heard me. No playing by the book on this. Finding Travis is the priority, no matter how many rules I have to break.”
He nodded, serious again. “I’ll have the phone sent to our lab. Maverick Ops can break it down. If there’s GPS history, deleted texts, fingerprints, we’ll find it.”
She gave a short nod, but her fingers tightened on the wheel. “That blood we saw back there…”
His voice turned quieter. “It’s possible the same person who clocked me and torched the safe house went after Travis, too.”
Cassidy swallowed hard, keeping her eyes on the road. “Then he could be hurt.”
“Maybe. But he’s obviously alive. He left the phone. Left that message.”
She wanted to hold on to that, but her mind spiraled. God, he could be in pain. Unconscious. Dead.
Kincade turned toward her. “Look, I need to say this out loud, even if I don’t want it to be true.”
She glanced at him.
He continued, “Travis might not even be in the area. It’s possible the phone, the message, and the sighting were planted. A misdirection by someone who wants to lure you out so you can be killed.”
Hell, he was right. With everything going on, she hadn’t even considered that. “If that’s true, then we’re chasing a ghost.”
“We’re chasing someone’s game. Maybe,” he added. “And if it is a game, we need to be smarter than whoever’s playing it.”
Again, he was right. Ironic, since Kincade was the one with the head injury. She should be the one thinking straight, but she clearly wasn’t.
Cassidy groaned and looked at him. “Sorry. I need to focus.”
“Your focus is fine,” he said and then he shrugged when she frowned. “Well fine-ish, considering.”
He reached over and gave her arm a gentle squeeze that was likely meant to be comforting. And it was, sort of. But it was also a touch from Kincade, and it gave her a heck of a lot more than mere comfort.
It gave her one of those flashbacks of him. A reminder of that night they’d landed in bed.
She tried to focus on the road, not on the way her body responded to his being so close. Or how even battered and bloodied, he still looked as if he’d step in front of a bullet for her without blinking.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice thankfully yanking her out of her thoughts.
She shook her head. “Ask me again after we find my brother.”
From her peripheral vision, she could see that his gaze stayed on her, studying him. Maybe also remembering that night they had together as well.
“I will ask again,” Kincade assured her. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right.”
There it was again. That assurance. That comfort.
That pull.
