Chapter 6

• Jesse squatted down, “Gia.” He said loud enough that his voice would carry beneath the layers of earth. “It’s Jesse.” He straightened and backed up as her copper-colored head appeared from between the grasses. Backing up, he set her boots down and glanced over at the other man.
• The big guy shrugged and started back to this side, “and that is why I’m not a tracker.” He shrugged, “I’ll go call the rest of the team and tell them we have her.”
• Jesse nodded, “find out where the hell that tow truck is too, Webb.”
• Webb nodded but made no further comment as he walked silently back toward the road. His stealthy movement momentarily surprised Deacon, for a big man he was light on his feet.
• Turning back, Deacon looked down at Gia as she shook the dirt from her coat. A brief inclination to bend down and hug her to him crossed his mind. He sobered, knowing that all it would get him was her teeth sunk into his body. His creature stirred; he’d be okay with her biting him.
• Moving as close as he dared, he tossed her clothes to land in front of her. He couldn’t have spoken if he’d wanted to as her grey eyes looked up at him and perused him slowly.
• “We’ll, uh, be over here while you shift back and get dressed.” Jesse motioned a few feet away.
• Deacon had to force his legs to move in that direction, to turn his back to her. He rested his hand on the gun, as his eyes tracked over the long grass and weeds, watching for any movement of any kind. Looking over at the van, he watched Nox pace back and forth beside it. He wasn’t even paying attention to the road, watching for other vehicles. Deacon wasn’t a rat, but he still lifted his hand and motioned to the prancing brother Jesse had left beside the vehicle.
• Jesse sighed, “he’s her brother and from what I gathered earlier she’d prefer not to be face to face with him.”
• “You are right.”
• Both men turned to Gia. She was pulling on her hoodie.
• “He’d only tell me everything I did wrong and how I shouldn’t be here.” She said as she brushed some leaves from her leggings.
• Jesse shook his head, “you did everything right.” He motioned to Deacon, “if Deacon wasn’t here, we would have walked right by where you were.”
• Gia peered at him, her eyes moving over him like she was trying to decipher him for a moment. “Thank you.” She blew out a breath, and tucked her hair up under the hat, “now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go tell Nox to stuff his idea of what I should be doing.”
• Deacon could only stand there and watch her stomp in the direction of the vehicles and her anxious brother.
• Jesse glanced at him, “I’m not sure if I should interfere or stand back and watch Nox get his ass handed to him.” He smirked.
• Deacon could only nod, he was consumed with the scent of her that had filled every fiber of his body as she’d walked by him.
• Jesse started walking back, he pulled out his phone and looked at it. As he walked, he typed something into it quickly.
• Lurching as if he’d just broken his cemented feet free, Deacon went after him, “Jesse, I don’t think this was a fluke.”
• Jesse stopped and waited for him to catch up. “What do you mean?”
• Rubbing a hand over his beard, he regretted it immediately, it had been the hand that carried her clothes and now he could taste her. Her scent was going to linger in his beard for hours now. “Uh, the van,” he spurred his brain to function, “it quitting—I think it was on purpose.”
• Jesse looked at the van and then back to him, “you think it was deliberate?”
• He nodded, “think about it, how often are they serviced?” He shrugged, “more than once mine’s been called in for a once over when it wasn’t required.”
• Jesse looked at the vehicle as they continued to walk. “I don’t know how they would do that.” He waved a hand toward it, “she would have known if she was being followed, there isn’t exactly a lot of traffic here.”
• They walked through the ditch and went over to it. He tried to ignore the immovable stance of Nox standing there with his arms over his chest as Giana waved her hand around inches from his face. Dragging his attention back to the incapacitated vehicle, he stared at the back of it. “Paint cans.” He said under his breath.
• “What?” Jesse turned around and looked at him.
• “Uh, just remembering something.” It was true, the group he’d landed in with when he’d first left the wanderers had been up to some underhanded things. When they found a vehicle, they wanted to track, they’d secure a punctured can under it to leave a trail. “I think it’s being tracked somehow.”
• “Son of a bitch.” Jesse said under his breath, “they found me,” he looked back to Deacon, “when I had my mate with me and went after us.”
• Deacon nodded, “Wynter told us.”
• “I’ve been going over that in my head a hundred times, trying to figure out how—I never do anything predictable.” He turned and stared at the van he and Webb had gotten out of. “Shit.” He pulled his phone back out. He pointed to Giana’s van, “give her a hand getting all her gear out of that one and into mine.”
• Deacon nodded and went over to the van. She had the driver’s door open now and was mumbling under her breath to herself.
• Turning his hat back to the front, so the bill of it would shadow his face, he opened the back door. “Jesse says to move everything to his van.” He told her when she looked at him from the front of it.
• “Yeah, okay.” She blew out a breath, her forehead was puckered, and he could feel the tension pouring off her.
• “You did great,” he told her, hoping to wipe that expression off her face. “The only reason I didn’t blow right by that log was that I spent a lot of time in the bush monitoring wildlife when I was younger.”
• Her face lit up as if he’d just told her she won the lottery. “Thank you.” She looked through the window at her brother who was glaring at her from where he stood. “Some people think I’m a half-wit without a brain in my head.”
• Deacon lifted one shoulder in a small shrug, “some people should keep their opinion to themself.”