Under Threat by B.J. Daniels (reading the story of the .TXT) 📕

She sighed at that depressing thought and crawled into bed, hopeful to sleep all the tears away.

Chapter 5

Vaughn stared at his laptop screen and tried not to doze off. He would need to wake up Torres soon, if only so he could sleep. The tail had left him jumpy, and he didn’t want both of them asleep at the same time at any point.

Unfortunately he was tired enough that the words of his files were simply jumbled letters. It was beyond frustrating he couldn’t concentrate. Had he gone soft? He hadn’t had a stakeout or any sort of challenging hard-on-the-body thing in a while. Had he lost his touch?

He scrubbed his hands over his face. This was ridiculous. He was fine. There was only so much the human body could handle and still be expected to concentrate on complex facts. Complex facts that had been hard enough to work out when he was well rested and well fed.

At the thought of food, his stomach grumbled. If he couldn’t sleep, then he could at least eat. If he made something, then Natalie could eat when she woke up.

There wouldn’t be anything fresh in the pantry, but they always kept a few extras on hand just in case. The nearest store was over an hour away, and while that was pretty damn inconvenient a lot of the time, between Vaughn’s desire for complete off-the-grid privacy when he wasn’t working and his sister’s need for a secret spot, it worked.

He and Lucy had handled their father’s fame in completely opposite ways. Lucy had embraced it. She’d followed it, becoming almost as famous a country singer as their father had been. She used the cabin only when she needed a quick, quiet, away-from-publicity break, which was rare.

Vaughn had hated the spotlight. Always. Like his mother, he hadn’t been able to stand the fishbowl existence.

So he’d found a way to have almost no recognition whatsoever. He’d gotten a strange enjoyment out of going undercover back in the day, knowing no one knew who he was related to.

“You are one screwy piece of work, Cooper,” he muttered, grabbing two cans of soup out of the pantry and digging up the can opener.

“Do you always talk to yourself?”

His hand flew to the butt of his weapon before he even thought about it. Before he recognized the voice, before he had a chance to smooth out the movement so Natalie wouldn’t know what he had meant to do.

Quickly he put his hands back to work opening the soup, and he purposefully didn’t look at her because he didn’t want to see that familiar look on her face. Jenny would cry for days after he had moments like that one, wondering why he couldn’t ever shut it off, that natural reaction.

Why the hell couldn’t he keep his mind off his past? Dad, Jenny. Why was it in his head, mucking things up when he had to be completely clearheaded and one hundred percent in the game right now?

“I’m heating some soup if you’d like some,” he offered, ignoring her previous question.

“Have you been awake this whole time?”

“Someone needs to remain vigilant.”

“You can’t stay awake forever.”

“No, I can’t. Which means at some point, I’ll have to trust you enough to take over the lookout position.”

He finally happened to glance at her, and she had her lips pressed together in a disapproving line. As though she was surprised to hear that he didn’t trust her. He’d been nothing but clear on that front. She shouldn’t be surprised.

“The only option for beverage is water, and you’re going to have to learn to live on the nonperishable staples in the pantry. I don’t think it’s safe to go to town, and certainly not worth it unless we absolutely have to.”

She finally walked from the little opening of the hallway toward the table that acted as the eating area.

She had visible bags under her dark eyes, and her hair was a tangled, curly mass. The smell of smoke drifted toward him even when they were yards apart.

“The soup will keep if you want to take a shower.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a washer and dryer around here, is there?”

“Actually, there is in the hall closet. As isolated as this cabin is, my sister isn’t one to do without the modern conveniences of life. We’ve got a good generator and plenty of appliances.”

She glanced at him then, some unreadable expression on her face. She scratched a fingernail across the corner of the old wooden table that had belonged to his grandparents decades ago. Lucy might be all up in the modern conveniences, but she had a sentimental streak that ran much deeper than his.

“Are you close with your sister?”

There was something in the way that she asked the question... Something that gave him the feeling he got when things on a case weren’t fitting together the way he thought they should.

There was something this woman was hiding. Even if she had nothing to do with The Stallion or Herman, there was something going on here. He needed to figure it out.

“Well, our careers make it pretty hard for us to spend time together, but we like each other well enough. Do you have a sister?”

Her downturned gaze flicked to his and then quickly back to the table again. There was something there. Definitely.

“We were very close growing up. But...”

“But what?”

“She’s...” Natalie swallowed. “Gone.”

And he was an ass. Her sister had died, and he was suspicious of this woman, who probably still had painful feelings over it. “I’m sorry,” he offered, surprised at how genuine it sounded coming out of him.

She glanced at him again, this time those dark eyes stayed on his a little longer. That full mouth nearly curved. “Thank you,” she said. “You know, not many people just say I’m sorry. They always have to add on and make it worse.”

“It may shock you to know that I’m not much of