“Alpha two? Four? You copy her?” Mac asked, nodding in satisfaction at the instant affirmations that hit his headset. He trained the scope on the east ridge. No sign of Zane either—he’d faded into the landscape as expected. “All right, boys and girls,” he said, turning the rifle back in Amy’s direction. “Time to get the ball rolling.”
Through the rifle scope he watched her dig into the pockets of the gray pants that hugged her ass far too intimately for his peace of mind. Somehow the tactical flex pants looked a hell of a lot better on her than they did on him, or Zane or Cosky for that matter.
She jabbed at the screen a couple of times and lifted it to her ear. Mac absently listened to her side of the conversation as she methodically passed on detailed directions to their rendezvous point.
Her brother was waiting for directions at upper Whatcom Falls Park, thirty minutes out. Which gave them plenty of time to get the lay of the land, and to identify problematic points of entry. He scoped out the hillsides and relaxed after a thorough sweep. His vantage point was damn near perfect. He had a clear, 180-degree view from his position on the ridge. The terrain he couldn’t scope fell within Zane’s and Jude’s positions. Nobody would be able to crash their party unannounced.
They settled down to wait. Thirty minutes after Amy’s call, a thick cloud of dust churned into the sky over the access road.
“Our guests have arrived,” Mac announced quietly into his comm.
The dust boiled thicker and taller as it closed on Amy and Cosky, and then a blue Ford Expedition broke into the open. He caught the flash of red hair from the driver’s seat, which fit the description Amy had given of her stepbrother. He swung the scope to the rear of the SUV, but all he could make out from his angle were two small, dark heads hanging low against the backrest.
“Alpha two, you got a visual?” Mac asked as he swept the dust-veiled road behind the SUV.
If their adversaries were going to attack, it would be soon, but there were no new torrents of dust rising into the air signaling a second vehicle.
“Affirmative. Three subjects. All identified,” Zane responded.
The Expedition rolled to a stop in front of Amy and Cosky, and the back doors flew open. Two children with dark close-cropped hair exited the SUV from opposite sides. The smaller boy left his door wide open and raced toward his mother, his small sneakered feet kicking up thin puffs of powdery earth with each stride. Amy stepped in front of two plastic retail-store sacks on the ground and knelt. Mac watched her arms and shoulders tense as she braced herself. A soft “oomph” traveled over the headset as her son hurled himself into her arms.
Something hot and achy, like heartburn, spread through Mac’s chest as he watched her fiery head bow and her arms tighten around the child. He wrenched the scope away and focused on the older kid. The second boy had exited with much more decorum, stopped to close his door, and then walked around the rear of the Ford to close his brother’s. When he headed toward his mother, not even a hint of dust rose from his feet. He stopped a foot or two from Amy. She glanced up and reached for him. Latching on to the hem of his T-shirt, she dragged him into her hug.
For several long moments the three clung together and that hot, acidic rush in Mac’s chest climbed his throat. Scowling, he yanked his obsessed gaze from the tender tableau on the ground and scanned the access road again. The dust storm the Expedition had launched was settling. Judging from the lack of new clouds, Amy’s brother hadn’t been followed.
An uneasy feeling wormed through him. Those bastards after them should be making their move—he twisted to scan the hillside behind him, but there was no sign of party crashers.
The driver’s door swung open as the cluster on the ground separated. Amy rose to her feet and shifted, watching her stepbrother approach. Mac settled the scope on her face, or at least what he could see of it, which was mostly her profile. From this angle she looked more neutral than welcoming.
Frowning, Mac studied the fed. Although they were stepsiblings, surprisingly they looked enough alike to be twins. What were the odds of that? The pocket-sized Venus look suited Amy—but her brother? Not so much. His lack of height combined with his slender frame imbued him with an air of ineffectuality.
Great.
Mac lowered the rifle and scowled. In his vast experience of dealing with assholes, size did matter. Far too often guys built like Amy’s stepbrother tried to prove their masculinity in the most inconvenient way possible.
“Thanks for meeting me here,” Amy said, her voice as flat as her face.