“But you are,” he murmured. “You fought off that guy last night.”
“I did. Just . . . don’t judge so quickly, okay?” She clucked her tongue before he could respond. “Brutus!” The little dog came running and she scooped her into her arms.
“You can’t take him—I mean, her into the restaurant,” he said, then winced again because her frown had returned. “Can you?”
“She’s a service dog,” she said quietly. “I’ve had her since I left rehab. She senses an oncoming anxiety attack and is trained to distract me, to get me out of my head. If that fails, she’ll bring me medication and call 911 if I need her to.” She proceeded to take a tiny service vest from her bag and slip it over Brutus’s body, before gently settling the dog in the bag. The patch on the vest read Service Animal and Some Disabilities Aren’t Visible. “Time to work, Brutus,” she said, then glanced back at Gideon. “I’ve never needed the call, but I have needed the medication. Mostly she keeps me from spiraling to the point where my sobriety is threatened.”
“Oh.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Daisy. I keep putting my foot in my mouth.”
She adjusted the bag’s strap on her shoulder, then patted his arm. “It’s okay. You’ve had a rough afternoon. I’ll cut you some slack. Plus I didn’t have her vest on earlier, so that’s on me. The radio station knows she’s allowed to be there, so I don’t always have her wear it.”
“So the vest and ‘Time to work’ tell her she’s on duty?”
Daisy nodded. “And ‘Shazam’ is her release word. Tells her that she’s off the clock.”
He chuckled. “I wondered about that. I heard you say it to her earlier.”
“Some people use ‘Release’ as the release word, but the man who trained her liked ‘Shazam.’” She closed and locked her door behind them, then looked up sharply. “You don’t have a key to my apartment anymore, do you?”
“No. Just the garage door code.”
“Oh.” She pocketed the key and started for the front door of the house. “Not that I’m suggesting you’re a serial killer or anything,” she added with a wince of her own.
His lips twitched. “Good to know.”
She looked appropriately chagrined. “I think Rafe changed the locks anyway.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t give anyone the key.”
She stopped a few feet from the door. “No one?” she asked, uncertainty in her voice.
He knew what she was asking, so he met her eyes directly as he answered. “No. No one. I had a girlfriend back in my last posting, but we broke up a year before I was transferred to Sacramento.”
He hoped he wasn’t imagining the satisfaction in her expression. Maybe, when everything calmed down, he would ask her out. On a proper date. Not as a bodyguard.
“Where were you before here?” she asked, not moving from where she stood inside the door. The only light came from the streetlamp through the leaded glass in Rafe’s front door, creating an intimate little bubble in the semidarkness.
“Philadelphia. Before that I was in Miami.”
She kept her gaze locked on his. “Irina said you’re a linguist and are fluent in six languages. One of them is Russian. What exactly does a polylinguist do in the FBI?”
“A lot of translating. I work in the organized crime division.”
Her eyes widened. “That sounds dangerous. But I guess all those law enforcement jobs are. What languages do you speak?”
“Russian first, then Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and French.” He smiled at her. “Any other questions?”
She nodded slowly. “Did you ask to come back to Sacramento?”
“Yes. I missed the Sokolovs.” They were the only family he had, other than Mercy, and he feared he and his sister would never truly be family.
“And now I’m here and you won’t come to Sunday dinner anymore,” she murmured sadly. “And don’t say it wasn’t because of me. I know Irina asked you to come every week.”
He wanted to say that sharing Sunday dinner with her no longer sounded like a hardship, but his voice was not cooperating with his brain.
“We can do a rotating schedule,” she offered cheerfully when he continued to stand there silently. “We’ll each go every other week. That way you don’t miss out.”
“Daisy,” he managed to grind out, and she abruptly stopped talking. “You should go to Sunday dinner. They were your family before they were mine. And when I can, I’ll join you. If that’s all right.”
Her smile lit up their little bubble. “That would be fine.” She opened the door and stepped into the light drizzle, opening the umbrella and motioning him under it.
He remained on the porch. “I thought I was going to follow at a discreet distance.”
“You’ll get wet.”
“I’ll live,” he said dryly.
She shook her head. “Get under the damn umbrella, Gideon. Please.”
He obeyed, fighting the urge to lean in and sniff her hair. She smelled like almond cookies. He took the umbrella from her hand, holding it a little higher so that he fit beneath it. “What will you tell people when they ask who I am?”
She stopped and looked up at him. “Who do you want to be?”
A dangerous question. “I’d suggest a friend from out of town, but there will be people at the restaurant who know me. I lived here for nine months before I moved to Rocklin.”
“That’s where you live?”
“Stanford Ranch area. It’s close to the office.”
She bit her lip, making him want to lick the indentations left by her teeth. Which was not going to happen. Get a goddamn grip. And fucking pay attention!
He scanned the area belatedly. Anyone could have jumped out and hurt her and he would have been off in la-la land, daydreaming about licking her. God.
She let out a slow breath, seemingly oblivious to his mental disarray. “Let’s just say we’re on a date, okay? That Irina set us up. That’s close enough to the truth that we won’t have to remember details.”
And welcome back, Mental Disarray. His brain was forming all kind of images now. None of which approached appropriate.
“Is . . . is that okay?” she asked cautiously.
“Yes,” he said too quickly. “It’s fine. Let’s go.” And before he could talk himself out of it, he switched the umbrella to his right hand and slid his left along her back. Just to guide her. The pavement got slick when it was wet.
You are such a fucking liar.
A car door slammed across the street and Gideon was instantly alert. “Take the umbrella,” he said, shoving it into her hand so he could more easily reach his gun.
She complied, warily watching the young man crossing the street toward them, a large black bag over his shoulder. His car was a blue Prius and Gideon committed its license plate to memory.
“Are you Eleanor Dawson?” the man asked.
“For God’s sake,” she muttered. At normal volume she said, “Who wants to know?”
The man’s smile was charming enough. If one liked snakes. Gideon swallowed what would have been a legit growl.
“My name is Elliott Scott. I’m with Action News, Channel 7. I was wondering if I could talk to you about what happened last night.”
Daisy stiffened beside him but Gideon wasn’t terribly surprised. He was more surprised that it had taken this long for the press to approach her. Keeping his left hand firmly on her back, he held up his right. “That’s far enough, Mr. Scott.”
The man adjusted the hood of his raincoat to better see Gideon. “And you are?”
“A friend,” Gideon replied curtly. “You need to stop right where you are. Now.”
“Miss Dawson?” Elliott persisted, coming a few feet closer despite Gideon’s warning. “Is it true you were attacked on J Street last night?”
“No comment,” she said, the strength of her tone giving the man pause. Or it could have been Gideon’s glare. “Should we go back inside?” she murmured to Gideon.
He bent his head to whisper in her ear, working hard to focus on the situation at hand and not how warm her skin was. “We can call for takeout, but this probably isn’t the last reporter you’re going to have to fend off.”
She leaned up on her toes to get closer to him. “Do you think I should talk to him?”
“It’s up to you. If you do, you might get unwanted attention. On the other hand, you might also ask if any of their viewers was a witness.”
Her brows knit together. “You’re no help.”
He chuckled. “At least he’s getting rained on while you’re making up your mind.”
She glanced at Elliott Scott, who waited patiently. “He doesn’t seem intimidating.”
“He’s a reporter. They’re like chameleons. He can be whoever he wants to be.”
“I could talk to him on the porch. I’m not allowing him inside.”
Gideon wouldn’t have allowed it, even if she had. “Sounds like a plan. Keep it short. We have reservations.”
She blinked up at him. “We do?”
“We do. I made them while you were changing.” He turned back to the reporter. “She’ll talk to you, but only on the porch.”
Elliott ignored him, replying to Daisy. “Thank you, Miss Dawson.” He followed them up to the porch, where he withdrew a camera from the shoulder bag. “Can I film you?”