My retort earned me a laugh. “I’ll call you if I get more info. Do you need anything else from me?”
Hawk was pushing the limits of my patience, as usual. “No. I’m good.”
Another heartbeat and he hung up without a goodbye. Something I appreciated about Hawk: he never wasted words.
I opened my email and scanned the list Hawk had created. Of course, he had gotten a lot further than I had. To be fair, he had countless people at his disposal to compile data.
I just had Fin. Who I was barely speaking to at the moment.
“Do you think it’s wise bringing anyone else in to help us?” he asked.
I tried to keep the scowl off my face as I typed on my laptop and said, “Says the man who had a small personal army attempting to track down Esteban before.”
“Look how that turned out.” The note of pain in his voice forced me to look at him. Despite my anger, I hated seeing him hurting.
“The Chief can take care of himself. And so can Hawk. If anyone tries to go for one of them, they’d have hundreds of bounty hunters on their backs in seconds, with me leading the charge. We don’t take encroachment on our territory lightly.”
He tugged the laptop onto his knees before closing it with a decided click. “I just don’t want to put anyone else in danger if we don’t need to.”
With everything we’d suffered lately, and the loss we were both grieving, I could understand his perspective. Hell, even applaud it, as I’d always been more of a solitary creature anyway. But this time, we needed help.
I closed my own laptop and sat it carefully on the coffee table. “Tell me, Fin, do you enjoy getting your ass handed to you all the time?”
His forehead bunched up as he stared at me. “What?”
“I don’t know if you realize this, but for two people at the top of our games, we get our ass kicked a lot. I’m tired of it. So, if bringing Hawk in to help me do research keeps me from taking one more punch then I’m doing it. This is my show, remember?”
A part of me should have felt guilty for how hard I’d been coming down on him. Yet, I couldn’t rein myself in when he was wilfully hiding things from me.
As a concession, I changed the subject. “Did you get the arrangements made for the Captain?”
Fin scrubbed his hands over his face and into the collar-length honey brown strands of his hair. “Yes. Everything is set. I also paid and sent away the staff at the house and most of my properties until we get things under control. They won’t care as they’re being well compensated.”
He sounded defeated, like he’d been run over by a bus and didn’t have the will to peel himself off the pavement again. It hurt my heart.
“I’m sorry we can’t be there for him. We’ll go visit and bring him a picture of Esteban’s head separated from his body. I’m sure he’d like that more than flowers.”
His surprised laugh eased something in my chest. I hadn’t lost him yet. Despite the anger, I didn’t intend to. We just needed to work on our communication skills a bit. Also, maybe our combat skills after I kicked his ass for putting me through this crap.
Fin smiled. “Holly tried to argue with me, saying we’d need someone to take care of us wherever we’re going. It hurt to turn her down knowing how well either of us cook.”
Holly. The woman I’d marry if I wasn’t so damn straight. I missed her cooking already. “Soon. Hopefully she doesn’t wander off while she’s on her paid vacation. I’d hate to lose her French toast.”
Fin levered off the other end of the couch, wincing, then plopped down closer to me. Even with a foot of space between us, him being so close to me felt like trying to breathe in the middle of a heatwave.
“What are you doing?” I asked, sure my wariness wasn’t completely stripped from my voice.
He reached out and dragged me into the curve of his arm. For a flash of a second, I allowed it. I let him comfort me, then I tugged myself gently from his grip and scooted further to the arm of the couch and shoved a huge throw pillow between us.
With ease, he batted the pillow to the floor. “Really?”
“W
hat do you expect from me? I don’t trust you that way right now.”
He slid an inch closer. “What way? You’ve been acting weird since you woke up at the Chief’s cabin. What else did the Captain say to you?”
I threw him a glare. “None of your business. And I’ve been acting weird? You aren’t ready for this conversation because I’m going to end up throwing large things at your head by the end of it.”