Mia stared at her brother. “You want me to do what?”
Riley stood in front of her, a phone in his hand. “I want you to listen to your voice mail.”
She sighed. The flight from Paris had been a long one and the layover at DFW had been particularly rough. Case lived in Dallas. All she had to do was get in a cab and she could be at his apartment in twenty minutes. She could stand in front of him and ask if he’d missed her at all, if he ever thought about her. Did he wish he’d done things differently?
She’d forced herself to sit in the small Irish pub in terminal C and drink a single glass of wine while Ezra had a beer. She’d reread the first two chapters of her book on Damon Knight and when it had been time, she’d gotten on the plane to Austin and come home.
Where she would have to tread very carefully because according to Drew, Case was now a part of the “take down all our enemies and crush them into dust” team. And Drew seemed to not hate him. Awesome. So now she could run into Case at 4L or right in the hallways of Drew’s place. She would have to stay in her room until she was ready to go to New York. She shouldn’t have given up her condo, but Drew wanted everyone close.
Would Case be coming to New York? What the hell would she do if Case came with them on the Castalano job? How would she smile at him and pretend like she wasn’t dying inside?
Six months had done nothing to fix her broken heart. Nothing. The ache was still fresh.
“I’ve listened to my voice mail. It was nothing but my literary agent asking when the book would be done.” Work was what she’d thrown herself into. She’d gotten some amazing opportunities out of left field. She’d been asked to do a feature story on a Navy SEAL team that had eventually been sold to freaking Time magazine. Apparently the Navy had wanted a female reporter for a different point of view. She’d gotten an interview with the king of Loa Mali, who was attempting to change the way the planet used energy. And then she’d gotten the deal to write a book about a British military unit and the untold story of their heroism. Naturally that had led her right to McKay-Taggart London. Damon Knight had talked about the Taggarts with great fondness.
Everywhere she’d turned all she could see was Case.
Six months should have erased her feelings for that damn cowboy. Or at least muted them. She’d spent six months with the gorgeous Ezra Fain at her side. After the first few weeks of being depressed, she’d tried to get herself to consider him. Why the hell not? Ezra was a stunning man. He had dark hair and piercing eyes, and an unnatural affection for taking off his shirt when she was around. He found very thin excuses to show off how hot he was.
Nothing. Her girl parts didn’t spark. No deep desire to shed her panties. No desire at all. Ezra was a lovely man but he was like a painting to her. Something to admire, but not touch. She’d been relieved when he would disappear for chunks of time, leaving her with a female bodyguard McKay-Taggart had sent so he could take a couple of days off.
Kayla Summers was awesome. She was up on all the TV shows and never minded when Mia wanted to walk the streets to get some inspiration. Kayla just viewed any super-long city walk as a chance to try all the local street food.
One of the things she intended to talk to her brothers about was a change in bodyguards. Ezra had been perfectly pleasant for the most part, but something about him bothered her. Now that her attention wasn’t constantly on Case Taggart, she’d had time to study Ezra. She’d noted his secrecy. Oh, he tried to pretend he didn’t take phone calls in the middle of the night that suddenly stopped the minute she walked in the room. And then there were the trips to Dallas that he lied about.
At first she’d thought about declaring herself bodyguard free, but then she’d started to feel like someone was watching her. It had begun in Loa Mali. She’d felt eyes on her, an instinctive sense that someone was watching. It had followed her back to Austin. She was probably paranoid, but she wasn’t giving up the bodyguard.
Which meant until she could convince Kayla Summers to come on full time, she was stuck with Ezra.
Which meant she had to tell Ezra about the e-mail she’d gotten from Tony. He had a new line on Theo and he was willing to meet her here in Austin. Naturally, he’d done the whole song and dance about not telling anyone and meeting in complete privacy, but like she was going to do that. Ezra was good at making himself scarce and still being around. He’d proven that in London when she’d had a nasty run-in with a guy who wanted to steal her bag.
And again in Paris right before they flew home. Someone had been in her room, but Ezra had managed to run the man off.
Thieves, it seemed, were everywhere.