Cam opened his mouth to say something, likely something smart, but Shane held up a hand. He gestured toward the front door. Shane got there first and did a check before opening it.
Instead of going out, he lounged in the doorway and crossed his arms in front of him. Waited for the comments he knew were headed his way. “Go ahead.”
Cam nodded as he pretended to scan the horizon. “I’m just wondering if there’s anything we need to talk about.”
That was enough to answer. “No.”
Cam glanced inside, toward the kitchen. With the door open, they could look from one end of the house to the other. That was the point of the safe house. It had to be easy to lock down and protect. All seven hundred square feet of this qualified.
He nodded in the direction of the closed bedroom door. “That looked pretty cozy.”
Shane let his arms drop to his sides. “Do you want to die?”
“That’s what I thought.” Cam stepped around Shane and out onto the porch.
Puffy clouds rolled along the clear blue sky. The weather had warmed and the sun heated the porch. Shane ignored it all as he stood there in his bare feet. He’d never been ashamed of having sex and he wasn’t about to start now. Not when it had been so good, so freeing.
Not when the nagging voice in his head told him he’d messed up. He didn’t regret sleeping with Makena or holding her through the night. It was the way she’d looked at him this morning, all full of hope and renewed energy. As if she believed they could make something work, which was just the ultimate fairy tale.
He’d watched the male members of his family marry and then blow up every relationship in record time. They took advantage, lost jobs, drank too much. Shane had spent his entire life on the run so that his genes wouldn’t catch up with him. The one time he’d tried to buck the trend, had found a woman who wanted out of her small town and tried to make a go of it, they’d both ended up miserable.
He couldn’t do that to Makena and he sure owed more than that to Holt.
“You folded in about two days.” Cam looked at his watch. “That could be a record.”
Shane wasn’t going to ask. He refused to ask. But... “What are you talking about now?”
“Only that it doesn’t take a genius to figure out you stopped keeping your distance.”
Shane’s gaze zipped to the bedroom door. Still closed. He lowered his voice anyway. “Do I look like I want to talk about this?”
“You look like you got hit by a truck.” Cam smiled, as he’d been doing since he walked in the door. “Good news is Connor is giving you a few more days.”
“What are you talking about?” Shane wasn’t leaving until the case was done. He didn’t care what other assignments waited. He wasn’t leaving Makena or dumping her off on another team member. The personal stuff had him reeling, but he’d see the other through. She would not be injured on his watch.
“Before he contacts Holt. He knows Holt is going to be ticked off for keeping the danger to Makena quiet, but Connor is willing to take the heat.”
“Having her big brother rush back into town and take over won’t help.” That trip would certainly make Shane’s life more difficult. He’d been messing up things just fine without help, so, no, thanks. “We don’t need to throw more people at this thing.”
Biting down on his lip, Cam looked as if he was trying not to smile...and failing miserably. “Good argument.”
Time for a topic change. That qualified as the easiest road out of this unwanted discussion. “Do you have information for me?”
“Yes.” Cam hit a few buttons on his phone and then turned it around so Shane could see the photos on the screen. “You were right. There was a tracker in her pants pocket. Connor is tracing it.”
Shane glanced at the photo and cursed himself for not checking for one the second after the first attack. He’d led her into danger by skipping steps. That was what he did around her. Work and safety and common sense all took a backseat to blinding need. And spending the night with her had not eased the burning inside him. He wanted her as much as—more than—he had before.
Sex never worked like that with him. He met a woman, stayed around for a few days, then moved on. But then this was not the usual sex.
“I’m guessing Connor is having Joel look into all of this,” Shane said. Joel Kidd, the tech genius of the group, was Cam’s best friend. The guy worked magic with surveillance and had an eerie ability to find anything.
“The Jeff Horvath information is disturbing.” Cam scrolled through whatever file he’d downloaded to the phone or whatever notes he had on there. “The guy lost everything when his face appeared on the site. Got fired. Fiancée left. Family isn’t talking to him.”