Jumping out of the truck, Ian rushed around and pulled the tarp off Noah. The man came up with his gun drawn but relaxed instantly upon seeing Ian. His cheeks and nose were bright red from the cold, but he looked fine otherwise.
“Where are we?”
“Fort Mitchell fire station,” Ian announced, pulling off the sunglasses so he could see more clearly into the heavy shadows of the building.
Noah jerked in surprise, blinking a couple of times. “Really?”
“We were followed.”
“But here?”
Ian shrugged. “I judged a charity firefighters’ chili cook-off here last year. I met a lot of the firefighters. Good guys.”
Noah waggled his eyebrows at Ian as he climbed out of the back of the truck. “Hot firefighters?”
Ian cleared his throat and quickly changed the topic as someone stepped out the door of the fire station and started to approach them. “Did you place your tracking device?” he whispered.
“Spoilsport,” Noah muttered back, his grin falling away. “I didn’t get the tracking device on. They spotted me when I peeked in one of the ground floor windows. Fucking blew it.”
“Can I help you?” the man called as he approached, cutting off Ian’s attempt to comfort Noah.
“Hey, Big John!” Ian greeted, earning a laugh from Noah who quickly covered it with a cough, though not well. Big John was most definitely hot.
“Ian Pierce! What the hell are you up to?” John laughed. He heartily shook Ian’s hand and then took Noah’s when introduced.
“I was in the neighborhood and I was thinking I’d check in on you guys,” Ian said. They followed John into the warm fire station and chatted briefly over a cup of coffee before Ian graciously offered to have dinner from Rialto delivered to the firehouse. John tried to turn him down, but not too hard. Ian didn’t mind. John and his fellow firefighters were not only keeping the citizens of Fort Mitchell safe, but they’d unwittingly provided refuge for Ian and Noah for the better part of thirty minutes. Ian was more than happy to provide them with a good meal for the night.
A short time later, they were back in the truck with Noah in the driver’s seat again. They both made short calls—Ian to his manager to arrange dinner and Noah to Rowe to pass along some key information. Mick hadn’t been alone at the house. Noah’s peek through a window had allowed him to see several people attending what appeared to be a meeting.
A meeting that had included Jagger.
As they headed back to the grocery store to finally finish their shopping, Ian prayed the cops got there in time to catch the bastard, but his hopes weren’t high. They’d be lucky if they escaped this blunder without Jagger getting a step closer to any of them.Chapter 8“We could use some four-wheelers,” Rowe muttered, his voice nearly swept away by the strong winds making their trek outside miserable. There wasn’t any snow left, but the ground was still wet and muddy.
“That would make these perimeter sweeps a lot more fun,” Hollis agreed. His boot kicked into a half-hidden stump and he stumbled a few steps, sending mud flying in all directions.
Rowe wiped a clump off his cheek. “It would give Noah something fun to do, too.”
Hollis curled his lip. “You mean instead of taking Ian on a wild chase through Covington?” He was still a little pissed they’d taken off after one of Jagger’s meathead enforcers. And it had been for naught. The cops had arrived to find an empty house with only a few dirty dishes to prove anyone had been there.
It had been hard to let Ian out of his sight today, but he’d volunteered to do the perimeter checks with Rowe to prove something to himself and to Ian. One, that he could trust Ian to take care of himself and two, Ian was a grown man who didn’t need to be coddled. He took his friends’ overprotective natures in stride, but he’d been doing that for years. Hollis knew Ian wanted something different in a boyfriend. Especially since he’d flat out told him that.
He almost stumbled again when the word boyfriend hit his brain.
It was what he wanted. He hadn’t been serious about anyone since Mark and unlike his reaction to Mark’s indiscretions, Ian cheating would kill him. But he couldn’t see that happening. Ian had a deep integrity and a loyal nature that would make him go out of his way to never hurt someone.
If Ian wanted someone else, he’d be honest enough to break Hollis’s heart to his face and Hollis had to accept that could eventually be a real possibility. He might not fit into Ian’s neat and high-rolling life. He was an owner of one of the most popular restaurants in Cincinnati; he hung out with a billionaire, a surgeon, and a badass who owned one of the biggest security firms in the state. He was used to a completely different kind of life than the one Hollis offered. Casseroles and classic rock. Lucas and Snow had seemed to agree with that—or else something similar because they hadn’t wanted Hollis anywhere near Ian in the beginning.