Jenna grabbed her phone. There were no messages or missed calls from Craig. “Why wouldn’t he let me know he’s here? Why didn’t he call or come here?”
She’d never invited her brother here, but hell, he worked for the FBI; surely he could get her address.
Wavy looked at Charlie. “Um, he was probably planning to come here, but then…got sidetracked. So, he’s at the Eagle’s Nest and would like for you to come there.”
Jenna glanced back and forth between her two friends. “What is going on you’re not telling me?”
Charlie stood and rolled her eyes. “Look, Ray Lindstrom spotted your brother coming into town, and she got a little freaked out about it. You know Ray, she has trust issues.”
And the fact that Craig had been willing to trade Ray—a wanted fugitive—in to the authorities in order to help get Jenna out of her captivity meant that Ray didn’t like Craig very much.
“So, she took him to the Eagle’s Nest?” Jenna asked. Why would Ray take Craig to a bar?
Wavy winced. “Sort of. She’s actually holding him at gunpoint at the Eagle’s Nest.”
“Well, crossbow-point,” Charlie chimed in. “You know, because it’s Ray.”
To say the woman was good with a crossbow was an understatement. As a matter of fact, the last time Ray had seen Craig, she’d shot him with said crossbow.
Wavy took Jenna’s hand. “Craig says he’s here to talk to you about something official, but she won’t let him go until you come and confirm that.”
Shit. It looked like Jenna was going to have to go outside again after all.
Chapter 4
Charlie and Wavy both offered to drive or to ride with her, but Jenna refused. She was going to need to focus on keeping herself together, and she didn’t want to have to try to chat at the same time.
As she got dressed, she could hear Wavy on the phone having pretty strong words with Ian about being overprotective. Evidently, her husband didn’t want Wavy anywhere near the Eagle’s Nest. But Wavy wasn’t having any of it.
Jenna couldn’t worry too much about Ray and her crossbow until she managed to actually get inside the bar. Facing crossbows seemed so much more surmountable than going outside.
She walked back out to the kitchen. “Okay, I’m ready. I’ll meet you guys there.”
Her friends both nodded and headed out the door. Jenna made her way to the garage, getting into her car. She grabbed the stress ball from the center console and squeezed the life out of it over and over. It didn’t help her tension, but at least it gave her hand something to do.
She rechecked the car doors were locked, even though she knew she didn’t need to—they locked immediately upon her entrance into the vehicle—and finally forced herself to open the garage door. She put down the stress ball and backed her car out. Wavy and Charlie’s vehicle, followed by Wavy’s security detail, was already heading into town.
Jenna focused on breathing exercises during the short drive to the Eagle’s Nest. All she had to do was get from her car into the building and she would be okay. She’d been inside the bar before, was familiar with it, knew what to expect.
The problem was the damned parking lot. It was over to the side of the building, around the corner from the front door. Would take the average person twenty to thirty seconds to get from their car to the inside of the building.
Twenty to thirty seconds.
After what she’d already put herself through today between her failed attempt to go outside and the massive workout…Jenna honestly wasn’t sure she would make it.
And if she did, everybody was going to know something was really wrong. More than just nervous-for-her-brother wrong.
When they got to the bar, Jenna decided to skip the parking lot altogether. She pulled her vehicle all the way up to the front until she was almost blocking the door.
If she got a ticket, she would gladly pay it.
She didn’t waste time, knowing sitting there would just make her anxiety worse. As soon as she turned off the engine, she opened the car door and ran for the door of the bar.
She kept her focus lasered on the “Yeah, we’re open!” sign hanging in the glass. It was only a few feet away. The world spun around her, and all she could hear was her own breathing as she staggered toward those words. She made it, grabbing the handle and thrusting herself inside the building.
If it had been another five feet, she wouldn’t have—she’d be balled on the ground outside, sobbing.
But she’d made it. She leaned back against the door, closing her eyes, taking deep breaths.She’d made it.