Twin Wolf Trouble (Shifter Squad Six 2) (9 page)

“Adley, honestly. You can’t let a few psychos ruin your day. I heard no one even got hurt! I know it was stressful getting out of town, but you’re fine! The kids are fine! Everything’s okay,” Fiona said, trying to calm her down.

Madeline tossed a look at Fiona and nodded mutely, trying her damndest to force herself to be calm.

You can’t panic. Whatever you do, don’t panic,
she told herself, taking deep breaths and slumping against the soft passenger seat.

“I’m sorry. I guess after becoming a mother, I take all of those threats so much more seriously,” she admitted.

There was more than a little truth to it, but obviously it wasn’t simply that she feared unstable people for plain, rational reasons. Though she’d felt safe, even normal for a while now, there was still that nagging feeling at the back of her head that someone could be watching her, or at least waiting for her to show up somewhere.

Honestly, she wanted to say that she couldn’t remember the faces of the men she had seen on the train, but she could. They were etched in her memories. As long as they weren’t brought in by the law, she knew she could never truly feel safe.

The drive back to the suburbs wasn’t too long, though it felt like it took forever. The road seemed twice as long. When they pulled up in front of Madeline’s little house, she was out of the car before it even properly stopped. Working with frantic speed, she took out the stroller and rolled it in front of the house, and then went for the babies, letting Fiona help her. Fiona carried Raze into the house and Madeline could practically hear the worried thoughts running through her friend’s head as Madeline attacked the door with her keys, twisting them into the lock.

“I’m not sure I should leave you like this, hon. Will you be okay?” Fiona asked.

“I’ll be fine, honest. I need a cup of tea and to put the boys in their cribs and maybe a long, relaxing bath,” Madeline lied, smiling over her shoulder.

They walked in and put the sleeping twins on the couch on their backs and Madeline showed Fiona out, stiffly hugging her at the door.

“I promise I’ll be okay, Fiona. Don’t worry about me. The explosion was so… unexpected, you know? Nothing to worry about now, though. We’re home and safe and everything’s fine!”

The smile felt so damn fake on her lips, but Fiona seemed to take some solace in it.

“Call me, okay? Let’s get some wine and forget all about the crazies of the world!”

“It’s a date!” Madeline said, already closing the door.

As soon as she heard Fiona’s footsteps retreat, she burst into action. Her heart was still beating out of her chest, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She and Fiona had been maybe fifty yards from the explosion site, a little store on the path they chose to stroll with the kids. The horrific boom had brought everything back in spades. The fear, the worry, the panic Madeline had felt on that train. But this time, it had all been amplified by the cold, gripping dread of thinking that something could happen to her boys.

When she’d recovered from the initial shock, another realization hit as soon as she saw the TV cameras already clamoring on the scene and the dozens of cell phones taking videos of the smoking wreckage of the store. She’d been told in no few details by The Firm that whatever she did, she had to remain out of sight and out of mind, for her own good. And then she had gotten stuck on the local news coverage because she couldn’t get through the crowds with two strollers for two sets of twins!

I knew I shouldn’t have gone into town!
she chided herself, running into her room and grabbing a bag from the closet.

She started piling essentials into it, along with her few prized possessions and her new identity information. From there, she moved into the nursery and packed the baby bag and threw anything that didn’t fit into her own shoulder bag. Madeline worked methodically, but quickly, the two traits ingrained in her by years of academia. By the time she made it back into the living room, her heart rate had gone down a little bit and she was thinking more clearly.

I need to get a cab. We’ll go to the airport and fly… anywhere. Anywhere but here,
she thought, securing the bags over her shoulders so she could call a cab.

As she was dialing the number, she heard a heavy, frantic knock on the door. Madeline stopped, her hand hovering over the numbers. Another knock. Panic gripped her throat, threatening to suffocate her.

Oh no,
she thought, her stomach dropping.

Then, she saw the door handle being pushed down and she realized she hadn’t locked the door. Madeline sprinted toward the front door, trying to push it closed and lock it before whoever it was on the other side could get through, but she was too late. She skidded to a halt right in front of Tex, who stepped in with a handgun drawn, his intense green and golden eyes gleaming with tension.

“Are you alone?” he asked quickly, waving Thatch in.

Thatch closed the door behind himself smoothly, almost soundlessly, and put away his gun.

“She’s alone, Tex. Put that away,” he said calmly.

Madeline couldn’t believe her eyes. Here they were, both of them, her twin lovers that she’d never expected to see again. The fathers of her children. The only men who had ever made her heart beat a million miles a minute and her head spin. For a second, she could feel her vision getting fuzzier at the edges and she propped herself up with a hand against the wall, still staring at them, dismayed.

“W-what are you doing here?” she finally asked, managing to get a few words out that weren’t only broken syllables.

“Oh, you know. We were in the neighborhood, figured we’d drop by,” Tex said with his trademark wolfish grin, giving her a wink. “Aren’t you glad to see us?” he asked, putting his gun in the holster on his hip and pulling her into a tight bear hug just as suddenly.

Madeline gasped, her eyes wide as saucers, meeting Thatch’s gaze over Tex’s shoulder as her body was crushed against his. He felt so warm, so safe, and despite the growing uncertainty in her mind, in that moment she felt completely at ease. She felt a sudden and painful sense of loss when Tex let go of her and she smiled awkwardly as Thatch chuckled, shaking his head.

“We should stop meeting like this, Miss Madeline,” he said, taking her hand and kissing the top of it gently, making butterflies flutter in Madeline’s stomach. “I bet there are other ways to see one another other than explosion-driven coincidences.”

“So that’s why you’re here, the explosion?” she asked as Thatch let go of her hand.

She was desperate to keep her head in the game, to clear it from the happy, cooing fluffiness that wanted to invade it because she was in the company of Tex and Thatch.

“Yeah. We saw you on the news. Figured we weren’t going to be the only ones. You’ve got your stuff packed already? Clever girl,” Tex said with an appreciative nod, taking one of the bags off of Madeline’s shoulders before she could say a thing about it.

“I can handle that,” she protested softly, hanging onto the baby bag.

“Where were you going?” Thatch asked, walking past her and toward the living room.

“I wasn’t sure yet,” she yelped, trying to get ahead of him and stop him before he got within sight of the couch and the sleeping boys, but it was too late.

Thatch stopped dead in his tracks at the door, waving Tex over. Madeline was standing between them and the couch, not sure what she was supposed to do now, or how she was going to act. She didn’t want them to find out about the boys like that. Well, she’d assumed they would
never
find out, but definitely not in a situation where there was probable danger lurking behind every corner.

The pause that hung in the air seemed eternal, like Madeline had time to grow old and die ten times over during it.

“We need to get them out of here,” Thatch said finally, flicking a searching look at Madeline.

She could hardly interpret it. Was it happiness? Worry? Annoyance? Madeline bit her lip again and nodded, carefully picking up Raze as Thatch took Rhone. Rhone stirred in Thatch’s arms, yawning for a moment before nuzzling his little face against Thatch’s chest. The big, burly shifter commando looked positively smitten with the baby. Madeline wanted nothing more than to distill the moment into a mental image—the first time a father holds his son.

Tex was looking at his brother in wonder, a small smile on his lips.

“Dammit, man, we need to go before we both break down and start cuddling the babies!” he said, but the look in his eyes told Madeline that it was exactly what he would have preferred to be doing.

Thatch snapped out of it and nodded curtly, reaching a hand out to Madeline as she kept Raze on her hip. She took it and let him lead her out of the house, with Tex checking the door first and slipping out ahead of them, though he kept throwing back glances. They practically ran across the yard toward the big SUV parked in front and Tex helped Madeline get in and buckle down with both babies in her lap and the bags on the floor by her feet. Her world was spinning by the time they’d slammed the doors shut and taken off like a bullet.

What the hell is going on?
she asked herself, desperate to twist her head around the direction this day was taking.

First, she’d gone out on a lovely little walk with a friend, and she’d managed to get herself stuck right in the middle of an explosion in downtown Chicago. Then, she’d gotten all packed up to run off to parts unknown, and her babydaddies had showed up at her door, guns drawn, ready to go to war for her. How much weirder could her day get? And could someone give her a knife to cut through the tension in the car?! The energy in the SUV was electric, tense, and expectant.

Madeline was about to say something, anything really, when Tex suddenly jerked the car to the side and Thatch threw out a string of curses so damn colorful that Madeline was thankful that neither Raze nor Rhone had developed that far into language comprehension to understand any of it.

“What’s happening?” Madeline asked, but she didn’t need the answer. The moment the first gunshot sounded and the back window gave a dull thud on impact, not breaking, she knew exactly what was going on.

They’d found her. Not only her wolves, but the
others
as well.
 

CHAPTER TEN

Tex

“They’re fucking shooting at us in a residential area! What do you want me to do, roll the damn car and take cover behind it?” Tex hissed, yanking the steering wheel to the side and sending the heavy SUV skidding through a curve, tires whining.

“I see that. Get out of here as fast as you can,” Thatch barked, twisting himself around in the seat to look at Madeline. “Madeline, get down, you and the boys both. The glass is bulletproof but it doesn’t hold forever,” he said, his voice calm and authoritative.

How Thatch could remain so chilled out at a time like this was beyond Tex. Not only had they found the woman that Tex was entirely sure was their mate, but she had kids?! Twins! Obviously his and Thatch’s! And now someone was trying to kill all three of them, and him and Thatch along with it.

Tex could feel the adrenaline coursing through him, humming in his ears, threatening to make him explode. He had a quick temper, always had, and it had gotten him into trouble plenty of times. While Thatch was almost cold in his calculations, Tex was the polar opposite. Between the two of them, they evened out. In a situation like this, though, Tex was damn glad that he was at the wheel and not his brother.

He checked the rearview mirror, seeing two equally hulking black vans speed toward them with a man hanging out of one of the windows with a semi-automatic. Gritting his teeth, Tex made the car swing quickly on the mostly empty road, counting the seconds until they could hit the highway. He didn’t want to return fire in a residential area with kids running around. Not that he had ever enjoyed it, but suddenly it felt a lot more reckless than it had ever before.

Thatch was already dialing up Connor on the phone, his gun drawn and in his hand.

“Madeline, sugar, you okay?” Tex called back, looking at her huddled body on the back seat as he made the SUV roar up and over an overpass on his way to the busy highway.

“No! You think I should be?” she quipped back, visibly shivering.

“Probably not,” he confirmed with a mild grin.

Okay, things were completely messed up, but a really big part of him couldn’t have been happier. They had Madeline in the car with them for shit’s sake! She was there with him and Thatch, finally within arm’s reach again, and Tex could make sure that they never let her go again. The last year or so had been a complete nightmare without her. He hadn’t been able to make himself touch another woman since. Even the thought of being with someone had felt oddly like cheating, a concept which he’d never had a problem with before!