Page 93 of Irish Betrayal

“Neither does a MacGregor, or a Barr,” he growled.

“Obviously. Raven also said that after Daniel, Coll, and Cat read Blair’s journals, she thinks it was a relief that Samson hadn’t taken,” Josephine swallowed hard, “things that far. Though mental manipulation is just as damaging.”

Thomas leaned back in his chair and, without asking permission, pulled his wife into his lap. She’d had her innocence taken cruelly and knew firsthand how that could derail a young woman’s life.

Jo didn’t say a word as he positioned her against his chest. “You overcame every man who came against you. Blair will too.”

“I worry.”

“I know,” he said gently. After all their years together, his wife still hesitated to speak of her past.

“She’s pregnant.”

“I know. I’m...not liking the timing.”

“She has a lot on her plate, and we don’t even know what’s happening to the sweet girl right now.”

“The baby will make her fight harder.”

Josephine sighed. “Yes.”

Before he resumed, he muted his communication link with the team trying to track Samson’s car through CCTV, so they would have a moment of respite, and lifted Jo’s chin, kissing her until she finally sighed and responded in his favorite way—enthusiasm.

“Here I am, crying my eyes out, while you two are humping and grinding on each other the room over,” Aileen said from behind them.

Thomas cursed. “Could you knock, for fuck’s sake?”

“The door was open, you penis,” Aileen shot back.

Thomas was momentarily taken aback. “Did you just call me a penis?”

“It’s what you’re thinking with right now, isn’t it?”

“Aileen,” Charles, Aileen’s husband, said, his tone normal and calm, but there was no mistaking that he thought his wife needed to calm down.

Josephine slid off his lap, touching all the right places, which definitely had his penis doing the thinking, but one look at Aileen’s red face had him ignoring his baser instincts. He did give his wife’s ass a pat.

“Come on,” Jo said, wrapping her arm around his ex-wife’s shoulder. “Let’s go make us all a drink. Thomas thinks his team is close to finding them.”

Thomas heard Aileen say, “I’m sorry,” as they walked down the hall, and Josephine’s response of “Already forgotten, but I might start calling Thomas a penis when the mood strikes.”

Charles snorted, his humor always right below the surface. He took over Jo’s seat. “It isn’t only Blair making Aileen ferocious. Mags has been inconsolable because she didn’t question the relationship with Samson more and because she didn’t answer sooner when Blair tried to call her. My daughter won’t listen to reason, not unlike my wife,” Charles huffed and shrugged.

“Once Blair is home safe, everyone will settle,” Thomas said at the same time one of his team started talking over the speaker. He and Charles leaned forward.

“We have video of Samson pulling into a convenience store where he got fuel. He threw away something. Money it was Blair’s phone. Trenton found out the sanitation company the store uses. Trash was picked up that evening, and the sanitation company dumps at the landfill where Blair’s phone pinged.”

“Are you still on his trail?”

“He turned down a residential area that doesn’t have cameras, but there are only so many places he can come out. We’re finding the cameras now and going through them. I’ll call back when we have more.”

“Blair’s already been with the madman two days,” Charles said stiffly, not willing to voice what they all feared might be happening.

“She has.”

forty-six

BLAIR