Free Run To You by Rachel Gibson

damn relieved to see her practically flying down those concrete stairs with her backpack and duffel. He’d made the plan simple and easy to follow, but civilians were unpredictable, and the last thing he’d wanted to do was waste time running up those stairs and pounding on a locked door. The last thing he’d wanted to do was duke it out with the Gallos because Estella Leon couldn’t follow simple directions.
    He lifted a hand from the steering wheel and looked at his wristwatch. It was a little after three and he was exhausted. He’d had little sleep in the past few days and he was running on fumes.
    There had been a time in his life when he’d been able to exist for days on little shut-eye. When he’d stalked the enemy and hid in shadows and on rooftops or high in the Hindu Kush. But those days were behind him. He was thirty-eight. He’d been out of the corps for several years. Long enough to get used to the luxury of more than three hours here and there.
    Above the sound of the air-conditioning, a drowsy sigh and a soft mmm brushed across his skin and drew his attention to the next seat. Drowsy eyes the color of a Bora Bora lagoon looked back at him from Stella’s beautiful face. “I fell asleep.” Sleepy confusion dragged her voice to a sultry whisper. The kind of sultry voice he hadn’t heard in eight months.
    “About an hour ago.”
    She stretched her bare legs, then stared out the windshield. “Where are we?”
    Eight long months since he’d slid his hands up bare legs and put his mouth on a soft throat. “South of Tampa.”
    “Where are we going?”
    Eight months since his mouth slid south and— Jesus. That was twice. Twice since she’d jumped into his vehicle. He scowled and cleared his throat. “Tampa.”
    “Why Tampa?”
    “My mother and Dr. Mike live in Tampa.”
    Two years after he and Blake had left home, his mother had shocked everyone when she finally picked herself up and walked out on his father. A year shy of her fortieth birthday, Naomi had gone back to school and earned her nursing diploma. She’d moved to Tampa, met prominent cardiologist Dr. Mike Crandall, and they’d been married for the last ten years. Happily, as far as Beau could tell.
    “Are you planning to dump me on your mom?”
    He glanced at her, then back at the road. He hadn’t thought of that, but the idea had merit. It would certainly solve his problem of where to stash her until he figured out what to do with her. She wasn’t his concern anyway. She was more Blake’s responsibility than his. If he decided to “dump” her at his mother’s for a few days, it wasn’t like he’d be dumping her at a Travelodge.

Chapter Five
    I t was a mansion. With an elevator in the garage and a pair of matching Mercedes beside a row of vintage cars.
    “I’m starving,” Beau said as they stepped from the elevator. His arm brushed hers, warm skin and hard muscles. For some strange reason, this stranger’s touch calmed the tumble in her stomach. A steady touch in this strange, unsteady world that she’d woken to this morning. The heels of their boots thudded in perfect time as they walked down a short hall to an enormous kitchen. “You hungry?”
    She’d had a bagel that morning and her stomach had started growling an hour ago. She nodded, speechless for one of the few times in her life. Everything was white. Shiny white marble like a museum. Stella had seen houses like this only in magazines or on television. She’d never been in a gated community in her life and felt very much out of place. She was careful not to scuff up the marble floor with the black soles of her boots.
    “My mother knows our ETA.” Beau’s deep voice seemed to kind of echo, or maybe it was her nerves ricocheting in her own head. “She’ll have something for us.”
    Stella walked beside Beau from the rear of the house toward the front. A lot of her family worked for people who lived in houses like this. Stella’s mother and grandmother