She stared at him and then blinked slowly. “You mean put powder into a mug and add hot water.”
The idea of grilling for her, though—of putting a whole meal he’d made in front of her—that bore some consideration. He’d never thought it’d be worth the effort before, but for her it’d be more than fun. It’d be fantastic.
He grinned. Best to start simple and try not to burn anything on the property to ash. “Boiling water is cooking 101. We all learn to do it.”
She huffed out a laugh. “I can’t argue with that and some soup does sound pretty good. But do we have any of it here?”
Simple question but there was a tremor beneath her words. She wasn’t quite ready to be left alone yet. Even with Atlas lying on his very own dog bed here in the main living room, she wasn’t ready.
Totally reasonable and he didn’t plan to let her out of his sight. In addition to her comfort, he’d been looking her over from head to toe every few minutes, reassuring himself she was hale and whole and safely with him. “I’ll call and see if Forte can find it in the kitchen. I planned to ask him to include me in the late night order for cheesesteaks anyway.”
The look she gave him was skeptical. “You could’ve told him that before he left.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure what you were eating yet.”
She swatted him on the shoulder. It did his heart good to get her feisty.
It took less than a minute to text Forte with what he wanted.
“I thought you were going to call.” Lyn crawled over from her nest in the pillows and blankets on the couch.
He gathered her into his lap while he waited for Forte to respond. “Sometimes I call up to the main house, but generally I don’t like to blow up someone’s phone with ringing. Heck, when we need to get Rojas late at night we always text anyway because it’s past Boom’s bedtime. Mostly, it’s Forte who calls everyone.”
“Hmm.” She snuggled against him.
He wrapped his arms around her and finally let himself relax. This. This kind of time spent with her meant so much and he’d almost lost her. And he was possibly going to ruin it by sending her away anyway. But she had to go; she had her life, the one she’d built for herself.
After all that’d happened, she’d be wanting to get back to it and he didn’t know if there would be room for him once she took up her old life again.
Chickenshit that he was, he couldn’t make himself ask her.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
He realized she’d been watching him as he’d run around in circles in his own head.
“You scared me today.” First thing he could think to say. And it was the truth, too, because looking at her, all he could do was hold her closer.
She bit her lip. “I hurt you first, then we both ended up scared out of our minds.” She paused, swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
At some point in the past, it might have bothered him for someone to read him so well, to have seen far enough into him to the vulnerability of fear. But this was Lyn.
He shook his head. “No apologies. You have a good head on your shoulders and you did so many things right today.”
“Hello? I got myself kidnapped and dented in the face.”
He tightened his jaw and relaxed it deliberately. Good thing Zuccolin had been taken into custody and would be held accountable for what he’d done to her. Her stepfather had assured them both that all of the men involved, including her two initial attackers and Evans, had been arrested by military police and would be awaiting court-martial. Jones’s mysterious business partner had withdrawn his considerable influence so there would be no easy breaks for those men.
Leaning close, he pressed his lips gently to her good temple. “You foiled the bad guys and saved Atlas.”
“So he could go get you to come save me.” A pause, then her tone turned bitter. “As far as my stepfather is concerned, I am still the clumsy idiot blundering around messing up his well-laid plans.”
All of the history between her and her stepfather was not going to be healed in one day. “I’m glad he was doing the right thing back there. At first, I was thinking the worst.”
She let out a slow breath. “So was I.”
Her shoulders slumped with what had to be guilt and she dipped her chin low until it almost rested on her chest.
“Hey.” Cruz freed up one of his hands to slip a finger under her chin and tip her face up so he could see her expressions. “You know the truth now and you can act accordingly.”
“It’s not like I can call him up and say, ‘Sorry for almost screwing up your sting operation.’ I think that’d expose him in all sorts of bad ways.” She rolled her eyes.
Cruz couldn’t help a grin at her sarcastic tone. “I’m sure he’s glad you are intelligent and perceptive enough to know that’s not the way to go.”