“I will be the head of my organization. Not some middleman. Don’t just capture and interrogate the man you are looking for. Kill your target for me. We will do business for a long time to come.”
An unseen man—probably the commanding officer based on the authority in his tone and the way the men in camera view deferred to him—spoke. “You make a very interesting proposition. We can make a deal.”
Son of a bitch.
*
A sunny morning with blue skies and a light breeze went a long way toward banishing her worries. Lyn didn’t want to live a paranoid life. Walking with Atlas had been a lot easier than she expected, relaxing even. She babbled about random things like the trees around them and the squirrels she spotted. He listened. He was good like that, being a dog and all.
People made things way the hell too complicated.
This trip, she’d spent far more time than usual pondering her childhood. Contrasting and comparing her experience to what she was learning about David specifically, and Brandon and Alex by virtue of their work at the kennels. They were so very different from the wealthy clients she normally worked with in terms of their knowledge of dogs and the way military life had influenced their life after. They were complex men with simple desires: build a good life, train good dogs.
And they were all single. It hadn’t required a morning shopping with Sophie to figure out why, though the woman had provided some interesting insight. Every one of the men, including David, had serious issues to work through.
Lyn’s parents had lived walking on eggshells. Too many secrets between them, unresolved misunderstandings, and unaired grievances. They’d remained married but they’d fallen out of love. Lyn had trouble believing maintaining the appearance of propriety had been worth the misery in a loveless marriage. But then, her mother had been married once before and probably preferred the security marriage afforded her.
Lyn’s stepfather could’ve been worse. He could’ve been abusive, for example, but he hadn’t been. He’d just never had a use for Lyn’s mother or for Lyn. There’d been so much more important away than there was to pay attention to at home.
She should steer clear of David for those telltales. He preferred to work on a need-to-know basis, and he was the person to decide what she needed to know. It was something she could work through on a professional level but in a personal relationship they were going to slowly deteriorate. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself from resenting it over time.
The memory of his kiss stirred up fluttering sensations in her chest and brought heat to her cheeks. He was good. Really good. And the chemistry between them was more intense than anything she’d experienced with anyone else. No way was she going to regret the kisses last night. But what she needed to decide was whether she wanted more.
“Lyn.” David came striding across the grounds.
David standing still was a striking figure. The man in motion was enough to make her stop in her tracks and stare. He had an economy of motion, neat and efficient, but covered distance faster than she imagined a man could just walking. She wondered what he was like running an obstacle course. Actually, she’d pay to watch him traverse one of those. Maybe there was one of those traveling challenges coming through the region in the near future. Sophie would help her enter him.
Plans for another day.
“Change in plans.” David came to a halt a few yards short of them. His jaw was set and he wore a decidedly grim expression.
“For the day?” She considered him. “Or in general?”
“This project with Atlas could be closed out a lot sooner than we planned.” He frowned. “It’s not the way I want it to work out, but it might be for the best. You don’t want to be involved in what’s probably coming next.”
“I’m capable of deciding what I want, given the full picture.” Oh, he was not going to toss her to the curb.
“It’d be safer for you.”
She held up her free hand. “I was attacked in my own hotel room the night I arrived. One of those attackers showed up here the next morning. Now that man is on bail and no one ever found the other guy. Last night you told me I could feel safe here. And now you’re telling me it’s safer for me to go out there. Make up your damned mind.”
Anger and frustration welled up inside and this time he was not going to dispel it with a kiss. He’d dismissed it, distracted her from it, and done everything to take her attention away from the cause but now he was trying to push her away and this was the limit.
“Why don’t we go inside and—” Not a single sign of his truly comprehending showed in his face. He was still focused on getting her to do what he wanted.
“No.” She widened her stance, figuring he couldn’t possibly make her move. Atlas came to heel at her side, watching the exchange between her and David intently. “We can talk about this right here. Give me good reasons, supported with real information, and I will make a decision based on those.”