Zoe couldn’t imagine who he was calling now, but the mystery was immediately solved.
“Kel,” Parker said. “Incident at the airport. You’ll want to come down here and get it on record personally.” He disconnected and slid his phone away. It was already ringing, but he didn’t pull it back out or take his eyes off Zoe. “Joe,” he said in his normal speaking voice, and how he’d known Joe was heading his way, Zoe would never know. “I need a soda for Zoe.”
Shocking the hell out of Zoe, Joe did an about-face and headed for the soda machine against the far wall without a word. “Can you teach me how to do that?” she whispered.
Joe came back and handed Zoe the soda.
“Sip it,” Parker said. “It helps with shock.” He rose to his feet and said a few quiet words to Joe that she couldn’t catch—undoubtedly telling Joe some version of a story about what had just happened and that the authorities were on their way.
She closed her eyes a moment and then Parker was back, crouched in front of her, his face a mask of concern.
“You told me to stay,” she said. “Stay.”
“Which, by the way, you didn’t do.”
“Because I’m not a dog,” she said.
He dropped his head and studied his feet a moment, whether to control his temper or resist strangling her, she had no idea. “If there’s danger and you’re with me and I ask you to do something like stay, then I have to know you’ll do just that.”
“You didn’t ask,” she said. “You told. And even if two out of three siblings agree with you, I would’ve liked to be asked.”
He just looked at her. “Drink the soda.”
“I’m fine!” And pissed to boot, it seemed. “And define ‘with you.’”
“In a relationship.”
“You don’t do relationships,” she said. “And it’s no wonder, you can’t even have a real conversation. Asking me to stay would have meant a question mark at the end of your sentence. Like, ‘Hey, Zoe, could you wait here a sec?’ Or how about ‘I’m about to go jump right into harm’s way, don’t worry your pretty little head about a thing, the big bad caveman’s got it all covered.’”
He wrapped his hand around hers holding the soda can and brought it up to her lips.
She took a long sip, and then as the sugar eased into her system, she sighed. “Okay, so adrenaline rushes tend to make me cranky.”
“Understandable,” he said with only a very small lip twitch. “But you need to understand something, too. When it comes to your safety, I’m never going to take a chance.”
She opened her mouth, but he shook his head. “Never, Zoe.”
Saying anything more to that would be like talking to a brick wall. “I don’t know who in their right mind would want a relationship with you,” she grumbled.
Except she did know who. Dammit. She wanted a relationship with him.
She’d told him he wasn’t The One, that he didn’t have her basic requirements. But she’d just watched him handle a volatile, violent, dangerous situation without blinking. He’d have done anything to keep her safe, including stepping in front of a gun, no questions asked. He’d put his life before hers.
And right then and there she mentally rewrote her requirements in a man, and those requirements all added up to Parker James.
Too bad he wasn’t available.
She drew in a deep breath and she realized she was thinking clearly again.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He didn’t smile but his eyes did, with a light that said he was proud of her. Still, there was a grim set to his features as he rose.
“You’re going to figure out how to stop him now, right?” she asked. “Find out where Devon is flying him to and have him followed and arrested?”
“No.”
“But—”
“No,” he said implacably.
She heard all sorts of things in his voice and had no idea what any of it meant. “Parker, I am not going to be the reason you don’t do your job.”
Nothing.
“Dammit, Parker, say something.”