Chapter 3 #2
McGuire stepped inside, boots thudding heavily across the floor. He took in the scene with a slow scan. “I told you to bring her home,” McGuire said, glaring at Patch. “Not to your place… to do…” He waved his hand. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
Patch didn’t flinch. He met the accusation head-on, voice level. “She’s safe here.”
“That’s not the point,” McGuire shot back.
“Actually,” Savvy cut in, tone icy as she turned toward her brother, “that’s exactly the point.”
McGuire narrowed his stare. “I can’t believe you.” He pointed his finger at his sister. “And here I thought it might have been him who came up with this idea, but now I’m thinking it was you? Have you both lost your marbles?”
“Are you kidding me right now?” Savvy planted her hands on her hips and shook her head. “You’re being an idiot if you don’t see why it’s better for me to stay here. It’s ridiculous that I even have to point it out.”
Patch chuckled. He stopped cold, clearing his throat the second McGuire glared, shooting deadly daggers. The same ones he’d sent the day he’d shown up at Patch’s place all those years ago and found his baby sister in Patch’s arms. That had been awkward—for everyone.
Savvy took a slow breath. “If people think I’m alive, then I’ve got a target on my back. What concerns me is that we’re no longer squelching rumors about you being alive. People might come looking for me at your place. That’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”
McGuire’s jaw clenched. “No one knows where I am. Besides, I have security—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Patch interjected. “You’re blood. You’re the first place people would look.” He held up his hand. “I’m the ex-boyfriend.”
“Which makes you obvious,” McGuire said. “And if I’m not dead, then neither are you.”
“Okay, but right now, I’m a little harder to find and I don’t have a significant other to consider.
” Patch cocked his head. “I understand it’s not like we’ve come out of the woodwork.
We’ve all been quiet.” He pointed to himself.
“Me the most. Not to mention I have no family. No friends. No one to come looking for me. I live in the middle of the flipping swamp. I can take care of your sister while the rest of you take care of both of us.” Patch stared down her brother with determination and fire in his eyes.
She’d seen this standoff so many times. She’d loved it when she could sit back and watch Patch have it out with her brother—the silent way—and win. Because he’d always won when it came to her and oddly, she’d gotten some pleasure in that.
“I’d rather be out here in the middle of nowhere with someone who knows how to disappear,” she said. “We both know how to do that.”
McGuire looked between them, brow furrowed, clearly biting back more than he was saying. Finally, he exhaled, muttering, “You’re just as stubborn as you’ve always been.”
Savvy smiled faintly, then turned back toward the kitchen table.
She snagged the mug and walked to the window, eyes scanning the mist-shrouded bayou just outside.
“Yeah,” she said. “I get that from you.” Behind her, silence settled like a weight pressing down on the room.
The kind that always came right before a fight—or right after a moment someone wasn’t ready to name.
Patch joined her at the window, leaning against the sill. “If you’re done with the lecture, McGuire, maybe you can tell us the plan.”
Savvy didn’t have to look to know her brother was bristling.
“You want the plan,” McGuire said, his voice low and clipped.
“The plan was to lie low. Keep her off the radar. Make it to one of our safe houses, maybe talk to West, get intel on who else in her chain might be compromised. It wasn’t to hole up in the middle of nowhere with the one guy who makes her forget she’s in danger. ”
Savvy turned now, slow and deliberate. “Excuse me?”
McGuire looked at her with a tight jaw, but there was a hint of something playful in his eyes—that same stare he used to give her when they were kids and he was messing with her and her twin, only this wasn’t a game, and they all knew it.
McGuire was dead serious about this one.
The difference was he’d never really been upset about her and Patch—not really—except maybe how they ended up breaking each other’s hearts.
“You don’t see it? Hell, maybe you do. But if someone’s watching either of you and they spot the two of you together—”
“They won’t,” Patch cut in, stepping forward, voice even but hard. “Because I haven’t spoken to anyone outside the bayou in months. You think I don’t know how to or would be willing to disappear? That I’d bring her here if I didn’t?”
“Thing is, I don’t want my little sister to have to do what we did. It’s no way to live. Not long term.” McGuire stepped closer. “But the bigger issue is you don’t know how to let her go. Not completely anyway. And she’s never let you go, that’s for damn sure.”
That hung in the air like a slap.
Savvy’s breath hitched. Patch didn’t move.
“Say that again,” Patch said, quieter now.
McGuire’s eyes narrowed. “You heard me. You think I don’t remember how you looked at her back then?
I saw how much you both mattered to each other before everything went sideways.
You think I didn’t notice how fast you left when you realized you couldn’t stay, she wouldn’t stay, and I had an opinion. ”
“Back then,” Patch said slowly, voice cutting low, “I was a soldier who had no desire to leave my post. She was working her way up the ranks and I wasn’t about to stand in the way of that.
Not to mention our lives were very different.
” He wiggled a crooked finger. “She was your sister. You were my team leader. That mattered too.”
“She’s still my sister,” McGuire snapped. “And the only thing that’s changed is you’ve gone from living for the mission to living on the fringe.” He waved his hand.
Patch shook his head. “A lot more has changed than that, but right now, the mission is keeping your sister safe while figuring out what the hell happened to her team. She should stay with me.”
Savvy stepped between them.
“Okay,” she said firmly. “This was fun for the first five minutes. Not it’s just sad and pathetic.”
The men glared at each other a moment longer before McGuire turned away, running a hand through his hair. He muttered something under his breath she didn’t catch.
She looked between them. “I appreciate the testosterone tango, I really do. But we’ve got bigger problems than the fact I used to sleep with my brother’s best friend.”
McGuire snorted. Patch almost smiled.
Savvy took a long, measured breath. “Can we just figure out what the hell is next? Because right now, I’m tired, I’m hunted, and I’d kill for a quiet hour without sniper fire or sibling judgment.”
McGuire relented first, nodding. “Yeah. We’ll talk strategy in the morning.” He looked at Patch. “Because I am her brother, I’m gonna ask. What are the sleeping arrangements?”
Patch nodded toward the back hallway. “Bedroom’s clean. Sheets are fresh. I’ll take the couch.”
McGuire studied him for a moment. “Yeah. Okay. Cross and Stone are returning from a short assignment with the Brotherhood Protectors. They should be here by morning. We’ll regroup then.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Patch held his friend’s gaze. “I need a word with you. But give me a minute with your sister.”
Mcquire nodded before disappearing out of the small cabin.
Savvy stepped past Patch, resting a hand briefly on his arm. “Why do you and my brother always do that?” she asked quietly. “McGuire never cared about us, so I don’t get the angry banter.”
“Funny, coming from you, considering you enjoyed it.” He looked at her, and for just a second, something warm flickered in his eyes. “Bro code,” he said. “I had no idea it was you who guided me home, but once we met, I should’ve had a conversation with McGuire before taking you to bed.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” She sighed. “I’m a grown woman.”
“That’s true. You don’t need your brother’s permission.
” He traced a finger across her jawline.
“You’re certainly capable of making your own decisions.
But none of that’s the point. Honor among brothers.
And I should have told him before he found us together.
He felt betrayed and wondered if I was ashamed. ”
“You didn’t tell him because I asked you not to.”
“I know, and because I cared about you, I did as you asked. But I should’ve told you how he would feel and how I was stuck in the middle of all that. Not that I cared, but he’s my best friend, and at the time, you were the girl I wanted to be with.”
“Do you regret that?” she asked.
He leaned in, brushing his lips against her mouth in a slow, tender kiss.
It wasn’t a passionate one. It didn’t last long.
But it felt like home. “That’s not an easy answer because I absolutely don’t regret respecting you or us.
But you know I didn’t want to keep it from McGuire and I knew he’d be pissed.
” Patch shrugged. “But it no longer matters. That was a long time ago.”
“And you don’t keep secrets from my brother anymore.” She pursed her lips. “Since you called him and told him I was staying here.”
Patch chuckled. “You didn’t tell me not to.”
“And if I had?”
“I would have been between a rock and a hard place.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I need to go have a chat with McGuire. Make yourself at home.” He turned.
She hesitated. “Patch?”
He looked at her.
“Thanks for coming.”
He didn’t blink. “You don’t ever have to thank me for that.
” He stepped through the door, leaving her alone in his living room…
alone with her thoughts, which weren’t too many, nor were they too complicated.
At least not right now. She knew after she’d had a few hours to clear out the cobwebs, she’d have to sit down and go over every detail of that mission, starting back when the whispers began that an agent might have gone rogue.