“Here,” Wade said, reaching over her shoulder to put his finger where the resort was located.
Ruby muttered to herself for a moment, then raised her gaze to Ryan’s.“Did any of you see a big rock formation anywhere near there?Granite, I think.Kind of looks like a grizzly bear hunched over.Sort of.”
He exchanged a surprised look with Cam and Jackson across the table.“Yeah, maybe what, a half mile east of there?”
Jackson nodded, his gaze shifting to Ruby.“You know the area where we were?”
“Yes, I know the place.Our bunker was near there.”
Ryan swung around in his seat to stare at her.“Your what?”
“Bunker.”She gave Candace a gentle swat on the upper arm.“Candy Cane, be a dear and go get me a drinky-poo.Your handsome man distracted me so much I forgot to get one while I was at the bar.”She reached up toward his face.He reared back but she merely patted his cheek, way gentler than she had been the last time she’d touched it.
“But I want to hear?—”
Without looking up from the map, Ruby grunted and pointed a finger in the direction of the bar.“Go.”
Candace shut her mouth, gave him a long-suffering look and muttered something under her breath as she got up and left the table.Ryan blinked in astonishment.“Wow, that was impressive.Is that all I have to do to get her to do what I want?Give her a command and point my finger?”
The shiny tines of a fork appeared an inch in front of his nose.He yanked his head back and jerked his gaze up to hers, startled.What the hell?
Those shrewd green eyes narrowed on him in warning.“You even think about speaking to my granddaughter like that, I’ll stab you in the heart with this thing.”
Maya chuckled darkly across the table.“You tell him, Ruby.”
Ruby gave a decisive nod and aimed the fork at the other guys, one by one.“Same goes for the rest of you boys.I don’t ever want to hear you’ve been disrespecting these women.”
Cam held up his hands in self-defense, dark blond eyebrows hiked up.“No, ma’am.”
Ryan scowled at her.Cam was too damn polite.“I was kidding.”
“Just making sure.”Ruby lowered the fork and went back to the map.“Now.About this site you saw.”
Wade slid into Candace’s vacant seat and took off his Stetson, staring at the woman who’d just threatened to do him bodily harm with a damn fork.“What kind of bunker?”
“Secret, underground type,” she said with a knowing smile that told Ryan she was enjoying herself and the attention way too much.“A system of them.”
“What were they for?”Ryan pressed.There was something to this.Ruby might be a crazy old lady sometimes, but she was also sly as a damn fox.
Ruby paused and glanced around them, as if to make sure that no one else was listening in.She had everyone at the table on the edge of their seat, including him as she focused on Wade.“You’re with the CIA, right?”
Surprise flickered in his dark eyes for a moment before he masked it and put on a blank expression.It was damn eerie to see, but explained why Wade had managed to infiltrate the infamous—and now dead, by Wade’s hand—terrorist Rahim’s network and serve as his second-in-command for years without detection.“I’ve worked with them from time to time in the past,” he said, his tone guarded.
She snorted.“Still do, from what I hear.”
He frowned, his gaze sharpening.“Where’d you hear that?”
She flapped a hand dismissively.“Around.I know people.You don’t get to be my age without making important connections, young man.”
Wade’s gaze cut to him, and Ryan gave a slight shrug.Her son was a senator, so who the hell knew what kind of connections she had in the government?
Candace arrived back at the table and thrust a tumbler at her grandma.“Your drinky-poo.And by the way, when I asked the bartender, he told me this is already your third of the afternoon.”She sidled up to Ryan and slipped her arms around his chest from behind.He reached up to rub her hand, enjoying her easy affection now that the ease had been restored between them.
Ruby took it with an innocent smile.“Thanks.So,” she said, totally ignoring Candace’s comment as she turned back to Wade, “tell me.Ever heard of Project Sentinel?”
Wade’s face went dead still.“Yeah,” he said slowly, searching her face as if he was either looking for something, or unable to believe what he was hearing.
Ryan couldn’t stand it.“What’s Project Sentinel?”It sounded really cool.
