Maizie said, “In the meantime, it looks like I have all the files. Plenty of them.”
“It’ll take you some time to go through them all. Need some help?”
Elizabeth and Craig Stairns, a retired couple Maizie lived with—meaning her Airstream was on their back lawn—helped a whole lot with work like this. Reading through papers. Stairns was a retired FBI agent and Kenna’s boss from years ago, and Elizabeth was a counselor who helped them all in more ways than they could count.
“You think Preston will care if we print hundreds of pages?”
Kenna chuckled. “Guess I need to remember how to speed-read.”
“It isn’t like you need to be doing anything else except putting your feet up and reading documents.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She wandered back to the window and watched the horizon, looking for Preston’s helicopter.
She spotted a couple of his security team members patrolling the grounds. Jax had spoken to them all, but she and Maizie had stuck to the house for the most part. After the deal with MSI andhow their boss turned out to beDominatus, she wasn’t eager to trust another private security team. If Preston and Jax were satisfied with their answers enough to trust them, she would as well, but that didn’t mean she needed to make friends.
A black dot emerged over the mountain range in the distance.
“I see them.” She hoped it was them, at least.
“Are you going to be like this every time he goes on an operation?”
“Probably.” Kenna could admit that much. “I have no idea how women whose husbands are deployed in war zones or spouses whose other halves are a cop or firefighter handle it. I’m a mess.”
“You’d probably be less of a mess if he hadn’t been blown up last night.”
Kenna didn’t turn back from the window. “I was a mess as soon as he left.”
Sure, hearing the hospital had exploded didn’t help, but it wasn’t worse than knowing her husband would be alone on that bridge, facing gunmen by himself. No matter what, all of them were in danger. Being here was more like allowing herself to be lulled into a false sense of security, versus being actually secure.
With their enemy and the reachDominatushad, there was literally nowhere they could hide. Even the security and anonymity of this ranch was on a clock. And time was running out.
The black dot grew bigger until she could clearly make out the outline of Preston’s helicopter.
“I was a mess as well. But it was more about whether the fake drive and fake port were going to hold up to scrutiny,” Maizie said. “I figured as soon as they got it, they would test it and realize it was a fake.”
They hadn’t told anyone they were keeping the original and had no intention of handing it over. “Unfortunately, that might be what caused the explosion.”
Kenna pushed open the French doors and stepped out onto the patio, a patchwork of red stones surrounded by planters with all manner of greenery in them. Ferns and cacti. Preston had told her he requested plants that didn’t take much work for his landscaping staff and that would remain green even in winter.
He was probably only trying to distract her from worrying about Jax on his mission, even with Zeyla there to back him up. It had mostly worked, though she had no intention of ever taking up gardening.
Unless she should?
Maybe it would be a decent distraction for times when Jax was on a mission or stepped into a dangerous situation—or headed to the street to check the mail. At some point, she might venture out with him, but when there was a baby to protect, neither of them was going to jump at the chance to leave the baby and go out together. Not even if there was an army back home to protect their daughter.
The helicopter lowered slowly to the ground, and she walked across the lawn toward it. Two armed security guards flanked the aircraft, far enough back that they were keeping watch on the area around her and her family.
She needed to tell them thank you.
Kenna stood with her fingers laced over her baby bump while the rotors created a wind that whipped her hair around.
The helicopter engine shut off, and the rear door opened. Preston stepped down, turning immediately to help Zeyla out. Zeyla had a white bandage on her left temple and one on her right wrist, and she walked with a limp.
Kenna came right over, and they hugged. “Are you okay?”
Zeyla nodded. “I’m good.” She gave Kenna another squeeze and headed toward the house.
Preston helped Jax out of the chopper, and Kenna got a look at her husband. She tried not to wince. He’d been hit by a bullet while wearing a vest just a couple of months ago and had only recently fully healed from that. Now he had a new crop of bumps and bruises, or worse.
