“I have a fairly limited skill set,” Keenan said. “It’s a good skill set, don’t get me wrong, but there aren’t many uses for it in the civilian world.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said, and turned to rest her elbows on the railing. “We’re hiring a Director of Security.”
He did her the courtesy of maintaining a straight face. Jack had flat out laughed at her when she dropped that hint. “Keeping an office park secure?”
“It’s a little more complex than that. We have storage facilities and pipelines all over the country,” she said, matter-of-fact. “Assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, protected from the threat of domestic terrorism largely by being in the middle of nowhere. It’s not just protecting a cube farm full of office drones, although that would also be part of the job.”
“Based in Lancaster?”
“Lots of travel, but yes. Jack’s there, so you’d know someone,” she said somewhat disingenuously.
“And you. And your grandmother, Marian, and Florence. Do I need a sponsor to join the Lancaster Garden Club?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, following his teasing line. “It’s a rigorous application process. They don’t let just anyone into the Lancaster Garden Club.”
“What on earth are you saying, Rose?” Grannie asked, making her way along the railing to join them. “Anyone can join the Garden Club. We’d love to get more young people excited about gardening. Are you thinking about it?”
“I am,” she said, her gaze on Keenan’s face.
“I thought you kill cacti.”
“I can learn,” she said, holding his gaze. “With the right people at my side, I can learn anything.”
Chapter Eight
He took her to dinner, a nice dinner at a nice restaurant in the shadow of the Galata Tower, because the Babes said the “young people” should enjoy themselves on Rose’s last night in Istanbul. He sensed Grannie’s hand in that, felt embarrassed for a moment, then realized that anyone who watched Rose all but raise Jack Powell couldn’t be shocked by much.
Even at the end of a long day of shepherding the Babes through what he thought was the coolest city on earth, and he’d been in enough to be able to make that distinction with authority, Rose looked more relaxed than she had when he first saw her, gripping her mobile like it was the only thing between her and a long fall off a steep cliff. She traced the rim of her wine glass and smiled at him. Held her hand over it when he offered to pour more. Smiled at him with an emotion he simply didn’t recognize, one that took him ages to identify, until something primitive, probably left over from a time before memory, when he was a babe in arms surfaced into his consciousness.
It was tenderness. Not maternal cooing, or feigned sympathy and fussing, but Rose’s unique awareness of him as a man, her strength, her vulnerability, all melding into a single look cast across the white linen tablecloth, lit by candlelight and the spring sunset. He just didn’t know how to respond to it. Nothing about him was tender, soft, kind. There had never been any need for that, much less any room for it, in his life. He’d never had it. Didn’t know how to respond to it. His ignorance frustrated him, leaving him right back where he’d started, in Istanbul, but it went further back than that, to the choices he’d made at seventeen, to a future he couldn’t imagine, let alone live. To break the spell, he looked at his watch.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” Rose asked, curious, not irritated.
“I’ve got to feed my neighbor’s cat,” he admitted. “She’s working late tonight. The cat’s basically a stray she’s adopted.”
“How very domestic of you,” she said with a smile. “What’s his name?”
“Asra calls him Edjer, which means ‘dragon.’ I call him Motherfucker,” he said. Then, over her laughter, he added, “He’s a street-smart tom who wins all the fights with the other neighborhood cats and scratches me when I feed him.”
Her smile broadened. “That’s the perfect excuse to invite me back to your place. To meet your neighbor’s evil cat.”
He was in trouble. So much trouble. He should just end this now, get out while the getting was good, while he still had his uncertainty. They’d made no promises, shared nothing more than a few days and his bed. It was simple. I really should get some sleep. I might get a call. “Better than asking if you want to see my etchings?”
“Much better, given that I don’t know what etchings are.”
“Come back to my place.”
“I have to be back by five a.m.,” she said, snagging her purse. “That will give me time to shower and pack before our cab takes us to the airport.”