"You two are cute together.” She waved her fork in our direction and went on eating.
"If you two don't stop it, I'm going to kill you myself," Woody growled.
The threat was completely empty. There was no way he'd lay a hand on me unless I wanted him to. Nor was he going to touch Savannah in any capacity unless it was to protect her. These three men, they knew what she meant to me. They'd risked a lot to save her. They'd do it again if they had to, for me, and because it was the right thing to do.
For a group of bad boys, they were good men. The fact my mother would hate them was an added bonus.
No, that's not true. She wouldn't hate Forrest, not the Judge Forrest Cross she saw on paper. Influential judge, with money. In her eyes, he'd be a perfect match.
The real Forrest? She'd run away screaming and insist I do the same.
Too bad for her, the only screaming I was doing was in the bedroom.
I rested my cheek against Woody's shoulder blade.
"Is there a way to tell what's going on? Where they are. How long has it been? Ten minutes? Thirteen?"
The longer they were gone, the more I felt like I might never see them again. I didn't want to think about it. Couldn't think about it. I did the mental version of sticking my fingers in my ears and humming loudly until the hint of those thoughts was forced back into a corner.
Now stay there.
"Should we go down and check on them?" I asked.
"We're staying put," Woody said, but he seemed uncertain, as impatient as I was. As worried.
"How long are we going to give it?" I asked. We both knew we weren't going to wait them out indefinitely. Sooner or later we'd have to go looking.
Woody sighed out his nose.
"I'll give it fifteen more minutes," he said.
I wanted to argue him down to five or maybe ten, but he wasn't budging. Not even down to fourteen minutes.
The only option was to lean against his warm, firm body, and wait.
CHAPTER 23
LEIF
"Someone must be feeling lucky today," I remarked as Forrest and I made our way slowly down the stairs.
"It won't last," Forrest said darkly.
"Of course not. Their luck is just about to run out. They messed with the wrong people." I peered ahead of us.
"Yes, they did." He glanced at me and smirked.
We sounded like a couple of characters in a movie. A pair of rugged action heroes ready to take on a bunch of bad guys.
The problem was, they had a script and knew they were going to walk away at the end of the movie. We had no script and no guarantees.
At least we had the ruggedly handsome part down pat.
"Are you sure it's us they're after?" I asked as we stepped down from the twentieth floor to the nineteenth.
"No," Forrest said. "I'm going to make sure though."
Of course he was. They could be after almost anyone in the building. That wouldn't deter him. He was determined to protect Sable at all costs. So was I, but I was low-key allergic to suicide missions.