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Bella laughed. “You know what they say about us transplants—we end up more Texan than the natives.”
He chuckled at his sister’s exaggerated drawl before saying good-bye and hanging up.
Stretching his legs out in front of him, he crossed them at the ankle and waited for Lise to say something.
She didn’t disappoint him. “You told Bella we’d be there for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because we will be.”
Eyes narrowed, she drummed her fingers on the bedspread. “Has anyone ever told you that talking to you is like talking to a fence post on the shy side?”
“No, I can’t say they have.”
She huffed, shaking her head, and then smiled, making his pants feel a size too small in the crotch. “I guess I should have asked how rather than why.”
He liked the measure of sass she’d managed to recapture since arriving at the hotel. “Hotwire is flying my plane into Arlington Municipal tonight. We’ll meet him at the airport at o-six-hundred tomorrow. Then, I’ll fly us to the airstrip on your brother’s ranch and Nemesis will be none the wiser.”
“You have your own plane?”
“Yes, a small Learjet.” He’d wanted something fast, that could fly above thirty thousand feet, avoiding most weather-based turbulence, and a plane that did not need refueling for a cross-continental trip. “It comes in handy in my line of work.”
“But you were flying commercial…”
“I was out of the country.”
She tucked her rapidly drying hair behind one ear, exposing the feminine column of her neck and a shell pink ear he could remember tasting. Once. Definitely a memory better left on the junk heap.
“On a job?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?” He raised his brows and a blush spread across her cheeks. “I guess I shouldn’t have asked that. Sometimes I don’t think.”
He remembered how frequently she had asked probing questions before. He’d deflected most of them, leery of her pursuit of personal information.
“Must be because you’re a writer.”
She shrugged, the blush intensifying. “Maybe. My father always said I asked too many questions and all the wrong ones. I don’t mean to offend people.”
From what he’d learned of her father from Jake, Joshua thought the man had been a pretty useless parent.
Which for no accountable reason made him want to answer her question. “It was an extraction, and your question didn’t offend me, but I don’t normally discuss my jobs with anyone.”
“Not even your friends, Hotwire and Nitro?”
“Not unless they’re on the job with me.”
Which was an answer to her earlier question if his buddies were mercs, too.
She looked like she wanted to ask something else, but was literally biting her tongue to hold the words in.
“Spit it out. I told you, your questions don’t offend me. If I don’t want to answer, I won’t.”
She smiled again and this time it warmed his insides. He liked seeing her relax with him.
“What kind of extraction, a person or a thing?” she asked.
“A little boy.”
Her gaze glazed over with that vague look. “You saved him, didn’t you?”
“I returned him to his family for a very high fee.” She would do better not to romanticize him. “Do you have any problem with flying out tomorrow?”
“No, and thank you for making it possible. I miss my family. I haven’t seen the baby in two months. I bet she’s grown so much I’ll hardly recognize her.”
The wistfulness in her voice stirred something inside of him. “They miss you, too. Tell me something.”
She picked up the brush and put it on the nightstand before climbing under the covers. “What?”
“Why didn’t you tell Jake?”
“About being stalked?”
“Yes.”
“He’d insist on helping, try to get me to move to the ranch or something, and he’d worry.”
“If you lived on the ranch, no civilian would be able to follow you around without Jake, Bella, or one of the hands noticing.”
“Civilian?”
“Nonmilitary.”
“You aren’t military.”
She had a strong tendency to get lost on conversational tangents. “I’m a soldier, just a private one.”
“It’s not right that Jake should have to pay for my problems.”
It took him a second to follow the conversation back to the question she was answering. “How would having you there be making your brother pay a price?”
“I told you, he’d worry.”
“He’s not a little old woman with a bad heart, Lise. He’s a man.” A strong one, whom Joshua respected. “He can handle a little concern on his sister’s behalf.”
“He spent my whole growing-up years worrying over me, trying to make life better for me. He deserves his own happiness now.” Her tone said she wouldn’t budge on that belief. “Besides, as much as they’d all watch out for me, they’d be at risk as well.”
And she’d made it clear that really worried her.
“From now on I’ll be with you. You’ll be safe and so will the people around you.”
“Thank you, but what about your job?” She bit her lip, looking worried again. “It could take weeks, months even, to catch the creep messing with my life. Some stalkers remain unidentified for years.”
“This one won’t.”
“You’re not short on confidence, are you?” She didn’t sound bothered by the fact.
“Why should I be? Believe it or not, honey, this kind of thing is child’s play compared to some of my assignments. Our perp is already too escalated not to get caught. He’s not watching you from afar—the night he shoved you into traffic proves it.”
“You’re right.” She fluffed her pillows. “He took a pretty big gamble that night. He’ll make other mistakes.”
“And I’ll be there to catch his sorry ass.”
“As much as I want to see Jake, Bella, and the baby, I wish we were starting the investigation now.”
He liked the enthusiasm and hope lacing her voice. It was a big improvement over the hysterically frightened woman he’d taken out of her apartment.
“We are. Hotwire and Nitro are going to sweep the place for bugs while we’re in Texas.”
She snuggled into her pillow, planting impossible images into his head he’d do best to ignore.
“I’ll find a way to pay you back for helping me, Joshua.”
He could think of one right now, but figured he’d get slapped for suggesting it.
He already had one over-the-top incident to apologize for; he didn’t need another.
Lise could not breathe.