They walked in companionable silence, Megan taking two strides to each of his. As they passed the hotel, she darted a glance up at her room. He noticed. “Sure your folks won’t mind?”
“It’s just my mom. Down here, I mean. Spring break, but Dad had a work emergency. Anyway, she’s asleep.” She didn’t add that her mom had only fallen asleep less than an hour ago.
Her mom barely ever slept, not in the two years since she’d become head of the Pittsburgh FBI Field Office’s Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement Squad, and especially not in the past three months after she was wounded in the line of duty.
Even here, a thousand miles away from home and work, on a quiet beach on an out-of-the-way island in South Carolina, she still didn’t sleep, had been up all night, pacing the room, double-checking the locks on the door, shutting herself in the bathroom to call Megan’s dad. When Megan had asked her what was wrong, Mom said she couldn’t sleep without Dad there, go back to bed. Her voice had sounded almost normal, not like she sometimes sounded when she had a panic attack. Happily for Megan, Mom hadn’t had one of those in awhile, but Megan knew from her dad’s work—he was a psychologist who worked with veterans with PTSD—that the attacks could come at any time, even when you were on vacation.
The thought made Megan shake her head. Her mom, the great FBI hero, always in the newspapers or out saving innocent victims from really nasty bad guys, yet her job had left her crippled in so many ways. Not just the limp she still had from her leg injury when she’d almost died three months ago. Not just the bad dreams and night terrors and panic attacks. Everyday stuff. Like trying to smother Megan—who’d proven time and again that she could take care of herself—or always trying to protect her and Dad from what really went on at work, as if they’d never heard of YouTube or Twitter.
Sometimes, it felt like Mom didn’t want Megan and Dad in that part of her life. Like she had to work extra hard, be two different people, juggling two worlds: work and home. Except those worlds kept colliding. To the point where both Megan and her dad had been placed in danger, despite Mom’s best efforts.
She heard her parents talking, knew Mom was thinking of leaving the FBI. Part of Megan felt guilty—Mom was really, really good at her job, and she loved it; Megan hated to think she was leaving it because of her.
Yet most of her was angry Mom hadn’t left a long time ago. Megan never, ever wanted to be someone who got so focused on her job that she didn’t see what it was doing to her family. She knew that was the real reason behind Dad’s “work emergency.” He wanted Mom and Megan to reconnect, mend fences, heal the breach between them.
Yeah, right. Megan loved her mom, she really did. But that didn’t mean she had to like her. And she sure as hell didn’t want to be like her.
“Still,” the boy said, interrupting her thoughts, “I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything.”
Megan smiled. Mom would have a conniption—that’s what Grams used to call it—if she woke to find her gone, much less with a boy older than her. Stranger danger, red alert, just say no, all that crap.
Made being with him all the more exciting and appealing. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself. By the way, I’m Megan Callahan.”
“Nice to meet you, Megan Callahan. I’m Mateo Romero.” He stopped and turned, thrusting a hand out to her. She shook it, noticing the rough callouses and scratches that lined his arms. Various states of healing. Not defensive wounds. Irregular, not from fingernails or even animal claws.
They passed the beachfront mansion beside the hotel, its high wall covered with climbing roses and a flowered vine that looked and smelled a bit like honeysuckle. Mateo slowed, plucked a dead leaf from the vines, settling them back into place with a sense of ownership. If he belonged to the mansion, which had its own pool and path to the ocean, why was he rinsing off in the hotel pool?
She glanced at his wetsuit. Seams frayed, shoulders stretched out. Nope, the mansion didn’t belong to him. “How old are you, Mateo?” she asked.
“Sixteen. Why?” His smile crinkled his eyes. “Too young or too old?”
“Just right for me. But kinda young to be a gardener, isn’t it?”