Page 3 of Rescued

And then he wouldn’t.

He was already at the bar with his coffee mug when his phone buzzed at him. He flicked the screen open, and his hand clenched around the phone.

It was an alert from a group he worked with sometimes, pro bono. They had a pickup in… New York. Queens, to be exact.

Two women needed to be transported to a safe house, on an emergency basis.

And the rendezvous time was way too close.

Shit. Switch did some math in his head. If he were home he could do it no problem, but Outlaw Ridge was a lot further away. There was no way his little bird would make it that far, that fast—or have enough fuel left to make the drop-off afterward.

This was what he got for waiting weeks for a damn little voice to make up its mind. He was needed for a mission, and he was out of position.

Of course, there were other helicopters at the Ridge. Larger. Faster. Longer range.

He could always borrow one of them.

Thanatos liked helping the helpless, right?

Another message came through. Apparently, the emergency was a ‘bad guys are after them at this very minute’ emergency.

Shit. That meant everyone who was coordinating this was in danger.

Okay, he replied to the message. I’ll be there.

Chapter 2

Switch pocketed his phone and clenched his fist, hoping once more that his shaky feeling was only caffeine jitters. But just in case, he pulled out his flask and slid it across the bar.

“Fill that with Bulleit,” he said. He wanted to add, and don’t tell the FAA.

But when he was desperate, liquor calmed him down. Mostly.

Not that he couldn’t fly after drinking. FAA rules didn’t take shifter metabolism into account. Even if he’d been drinking tonight, he would have burned up the alcohol in his system before he even got to Outlaw Ridge.

But it was still a bad idea.

Funny how the little voice had insisted on coffee tonight. As though it knew.

He was halfway to the exit before he remembered that he didn’t have a damn car. It was back home with his clothes and his computers, and he’d been begging, borrowing and stealing rides since he’d been here.

Well, why stop now?

Gunn was in the middle of lining up a tricky shot over at the pool table. Switch always felt a little stab of jealousy when he looked at Gunn now, because of his mate.

Not that he wanted Mikey himself—she was crazier than Sanchez, in some ways. But he’d love to find a woman who could kick ass, boost cars and crack safes the way Michelangela Connors could.

Although how he thought he was going to meet anyone while hanging around in the fucking Adirondack wilderness with the Sanchez cousins was beyond him.

One more reason to leave. Tomorrow.

In the meantime, Gunn’s jacket was hanging over the back of his chair—with his truck keys in the pocket. Switch stopped Boomer, their explosives expert, on his way back from the head and said, “Tell Gunn I borrowed his truck.”

He made sure to take off before Boomer delivered the message.

Nobody came running out of the bar to stop him driving away, though he did go heavy on the accelerator and take the turn out of the parking lot at tire-skidding speed, just in case. As he drove to the Outlaw Ridge base, he was already calculating air speed, fuel, and landing coordinates in his head.

He pulled his phone and did a few more calculations on the fly, almost driving off the road at one point while he looked at the screen.