“Do you ever regret leaving the Agency?” she asked, sipping her wine.
“Not once in two years,” he said, but she didn’t miss the sudden flex of his jaw muscle or the tightness of his voice. “I had some bad stuff go down at the Agency and by the time it passed, I was one foot out the door.” He sighed and tapped his fingers on the table, as if drumming out tension. “Right about the time I was contemplating leaving the agency, Blake lost his fiancée in an undercover ATF mission. He was ready to go vigilante and there’s no good in that. I needed something to distract him, a way to keep him under thumb, and Walker Security was born. Truth be told, I suspect Blake’s walk through hell was the real reason Luke went civilian. Otherwise, I think he would have been a career Navy, like our father was career Army.”
“Did they ever catch the person who killed Blake’s fiancée?”
“No,” he said. “That particular Mexican drug cartel leader is still alive and well, and deep underground, but not ever out of Blake’s mind. If he finds him, he’ll go after him. I never kid myself about that.”
She studied him a moment. “And you and Luke will be there with him.”
He gave a sharp nod. “Making sure he doesn’t end up dead or in a jail cell for taking the guy out.”
Heaviness settled in her chest. “And your father?”
“What a lifetime of combat couldn’t do, cancer did. We buried him three Christmases ago. My mother lives in Jersey and is thrilled to have her boys nearby. She was yet another reason Walker Security made sense.”
“I was a teenager when breast cancer took my mother,” she said, emotion thickening her voice. “Seventeen when my father married Sharon.”
He didn’t say he was sorry or ‘oh how horrible’ like most people and she knew why. He knew it didn’t help; he knew from experience that “I’m sorry’ sometimes managed to open a raw nerve. “And Sharon has been like the Energizer Bunny. She just keeps on staying.”
She smiled. “The evil Energizer Bunny.”
John appeared at the table with a cordless phone in his hand. “There’s a call for Lauren.” Her gaze went to Royce’s, her stomach suddenly rejecting the few bites of bread and the wine she’d just enjoyed. “No one knows I’m here. I didn’t even know where we were going before we got here.”
John arched a brow and covered the receiver. “Muffled voice, and car horns in the background. Sounds like a payphone to me.”
She sighed. “It’s probably a reporter.” She reached for the phone. “They’ll just keep calling if I don’t take it.”
John handed her the receiver and she immediately put it to her ear. “Hello, this is Lauren.”
The sound of a clock ticking echoed through the line for a mere few seconds, before a dial tone replaced it, and Lauren felt a chill race down her spine. Her hand began to tremble with the understanding that these feelings she’d been having of being watched weren’t her imagination, nor were the calls pranks. Which meant someone had watched her tonight, followed her to Eden.
Royce reached for the phone, and Lauren let him take it from her hand, barely aware of him listening to the dial tone or disposing of it, until his hand slid to her face. “Tell me what just happened.”
She wet her lips. “The clo… ” She swallowed the dryness in her throat, her hand going to his wrist. “Ticking clock.”
He studied her several long seconds, then pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re okay. We’ll take care of this. I’ll take care of it.” He leaned back and looked at her, trailing his fingers down her cheek. “Give me a second.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed, then snagged the cordless and looked through the call log.
“I’m at Eden with Lauren,” he said into his cell. “She just got a call we need traced.” He read off the number and then barely a second later, said, “That’s what I thought.” He hung up. “Payphone, but Luke’s headed over there to check it out anyway.” She opened her mouth to protest and he cut her off, “Don’t even think about telling me he doesn’t have to. He wants to and so do I.”
“Is this when you tell me to call the police?” she asked.
“If I did, would you?”
She shook her head. “No. It would end up all over the papers and I can’t deal with that, Royce. Not on top of everything else and not when that might be exactly what this person wants.”
“Who are you trying to convince?” he asked. “You? Or me?”
“I don’t think I have the reasoning skills right now to convince anyone of anything, which makes me wonder if that isn’t the idea. Someone wants to rattle me before the trial.”
“We could make a list of what this person’s motivations might be,” he said. “And of all the things I’d put on that list, you picked the one that makes you feel better, the one that makes you feel like you aren’t in danger.”
“Are you saying you think I am?”
“I’m saying that refusing to accept that you might be is danger in and of itself. You know that. Your job has allowed you to see what people are capable of.”
“You aren’t making me feel better.”
His hand moved down her hair. “I’d rather make you feel safe.” He brushed his lips over hers. “Let’s get out of here.”