He sipped his coffee, then shrugged. That was twice he could have been using the coffee as a blind to hide his expression, or as a subtle diversion. She’d never before thought of drinking coffee as an evasive action, but with him she was beginning to think she needed to view everything through that filter. “You’re not very trusting,” he finally said. Evidently she wasn’t as good at those diversions and hiding her thoughts as he was.
“That’s a good thing,” he continued. “You’d have to be a fool if you took everything at face value. What you said is true enough. But as a team leader, I have both the authority and the training to make field decisions. If I hadn’t brought Jesse into the loop, he might have triggered some alarms by poking where he shouldn’t have-am I right? He didn’t seem like the type to give up if he wanted to know something unless he had a compelling reason not to.”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, you pegged him right.”
“As for you-Mac and I discussed how much you could be told, and he said he’d leave it up to me.” He reached for the jelly to slather some on a second piece of toast, the first time he’d eaten extra. His forearm brushed her arm and automatically Bo drew back, a frisson of alertness shooting along her nerve endings. She couldn’t have said why; she’d touched him before, helped him into the house, but-that was her touching him. This was the first time he’d touched her.
On one level, her alarm felt silly. She wasn’t afraid of him, didn’t think he was a rapist or anything like that; if she had, no way would he be staying in her house. But on a very basic level her instincts told her something else, that he was like a tiger in a zoo: under control at the moment, but still a wild animal.
She glanced up and saw shrewd awareness in his blue-lightning gaze, as if he’d correctly tagged her reaction. This could get awkward, considering he’d be living in her house for an unspecified time-if she let it. She was more inclined to be up front.
“Don’t take it personally. I’m cautious that way.” In her experience, romantic entanglements were unreliable and more trouble than they were worth. Her parents’ examples were proof enough, but she’d tried marriage herself only to have it fall apart within a year. She’d learned her lesson; she was better off on her own, relying only on herself.
“So you aren’t afraid I’ll try to jump you?”
Humor was in his eyes now, and she snorted. “The shape you’re in? I could take you.”
“As humiliating as it is to admit, yeah, you could.” His gaze darkened. “I hate being this weak. I’m working on it, though; I estimate it’ll be another two or three weeks before I can start any real workouts.”
Was that a warning, or casual conversation? If she’d ever had any real skills at deciphering personal dynamics, they were rusty now from disuse. She’d be on firmer ground if he were a dog. She opted for casual conversation. “There’s a gym in town. Not the best, but at least it’s a gym. And I have a treadmill tucked in the storage under the stairs; I can get it out when you think you’re ready.”
“Thanks. For now, my next goal is climbing those stairs. No offense, but your sofa is killing me.”
While Bo was doing her morning work, Morgan walked outside, both to give her room to concentrate and for the joy of getting out in the fresh air and sunshine and pushing his body a little. Getting back into shape wasn’t going to just happen; he’d have to work for it, maybe harder than he’d ever worked before, because he couldn’t remember ever being this weak before. He was already getting stronger, probably because he was eating more. Bo wasn’t a fancy cook, but he wasn’t a fancy eater; give him a good hamburger or spaghetti dinner any day, rather than some frou-frou arrangement of two green beans, a mushroom, and an ounce of sautéed chicken.
Because it would only be fair, when he was able, he intended to take over some of the household chores. He could vacuum with the best of ’em, and do laundry. From what he could see, she had almost no down time, unless you counted when she took the dog for walks.
Carefully he walked to the edge of the woods, then turned and looked back at the barn-house. It was an unusual place for an unusual woman. He was a man who liked women, so he pondered his hostess. She had walls-serious walls. Some women had walls because they were afraid, but he didn’t sense any timidity or uncertainty in her. She was self-contained, confident in who she was and the choices she made, alone and happy to be that way.
He liked that about her because clingy, dependent people annoyed him. His own nature was to take charge and get things done, which was why he was in the GO-Teams to begin with. He liked the adrenaline rush, but he also liked the sense of accomplishment, of being able to do things the ordinary person couldn’t do. He put his ass on the line every time he went on a mission; nothing about indecision and weakness appealed to him, no matter how it was packaged.
Bo’s packaging was on the skimpy side, but appealing for all that. She was a little taller than average, thin, with long arms and legs, and no boobs to speak of. If she was bigger than an A-cup, he’d kiss her ass-and enjoy doing it, because though she might be skinny her ass had a definite curve to it. Her face was faintly exotic, all big dark eyes and a wide, soft mouth, more appealing than pretty. There was that word again: appealing. And he didn’t need to think about how appealing she was. He was here to recuperate and wait for Axel’s trap to be sprung, then he’d be gone. He’d enjoy some flirtation, the zing of sexual attraction, if the circumstances were different. They weren’t. There wasn’t any point in thinking about Bo’s curvy little ass.
Instead, he should spend his time going over and over everything that had happened the day he’d been shot, trying to spot the pertinent detail that had so far eluded him. Being relegated to the position of bystander rubbed him wrong. He was accustomed to swinging into action and doing what needed to be done, to being the bullet instead of the bait. He wanted to be doing something, anything, other than sitting with his thumb up his ass. He felt useless. Hell, he was useless. If anything happened, he wasn’t certain he could save himself, much less anyone else.
Look at him now: he’d walked maybe fifty yards, and he was exhausted-though that was an improvement because when he’d arrived last Thursday, he’d needed help just getting into the house, and to the bathroom. It galled him that he needed to rest before he could make the return fifty yards.
At least he was upright, and in the sunshine. The bright heat felt good on his skin. He stood there listening to the birds singing as boisterously as if they were drunk, and his mind slipped back to that day.
Congresswoman Kingsley was at the top of his list for somehow being behind all of this, but he had to admit she was there solely because she was a politician. Other than that, he couldn’t think of anything she’d said or done that was out of the ordinary. There was also her husband, Dexter the lawyer. Politician, lawyer to the power brokers-was there much difference between them? Again, Dexter hadn’t done anything other than become a lawyer.
He replayed his chance meeting with them, everything they’d said, anything he’d seen, and nothing popped.
Next on his list was Brawley, who had made that phone call immediately after seeing him. But Axel had managed to trace the call, and the only call Brawley had made in that time frame had been to his wife. After checking out both Brawley and the wife, Axel had found nothing. They were regular citizens, with nothing suspicious in their backgrounds. They’d raised a couple of kids, had a few grandkids, went to church.