Holy shit!
Julia O’Toole had a way of blurting out her questions that made Britt’s ass clench. He had a shooting pain at the base of his spine to prove it.
To give himself time to think, he played dumb. “Pardon?”
“In the shop there’s this red button on the brick wall. What’s it do?”
He nearly shot a victorious fist in the air when a plausible explanation came to him. “It starts the fire mitigation system. When we’re working, we use blowtorches and metal grinders and all manner of machines that employ immense amounts of heat or throw off sparks. And there’s a lot of flammable shit…uh…stuffin the shop. There are situations where if we had to wait for smoke to set off the sprinkler system, it’d be too late and the whole building would go up.”
She grunted. “Who knew building motorcycles could be so dangerous?”
He breathed a covert sigh of relief when he didn’t detect any skepticism in her voice.
If being a clandestine operative teaches a guy anything, it’s how to lie with a straight face.
Although, he wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“It’s not chasing down bad guys, but it has its moments,” he told her with a friendly wink that, in retrospect, wasn’t all that friendly. More likeflirty.
A soft blush stole into her cheeks. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and quickly turned her gaze toward the gate as it rattled open on its track.
Well…how about that?
Fisher might be the playboy amongst playboys, but Britt had been with his fair share of women—morethan his fair share, some might say—and so he recognized the signs. The flushing skin, the nervous grooming, the inability to maintain eye contact.
Little Miss Federal Agent wasn’t immune to his charms.
Now the question was, what did he want to do about that?
Nothing, he staunchly told himself. Because one, he couldn’t tell her the true nature of his job, and so was there any point in starting something that would be based on a lie? And two, with his convict brother looking like he was about to dive headfirst into something undoubtedly illegal, did Britt really want to be involved with someone who carried a badge?
No.To both questions.
When they were past the gate and standing on the sidewalk next to the SUV, he offered his hand to Agent Douglas before tentatively doing the same to Agent O’Toole.
Tentatively because he was expecting another jolt of electricity.
When their hands met this time, however, all he felt was the softness of her palm, the delicateness of her fingers, and the firmness of her handshake.
“What’s the eagle feather for?” she asked after dropping his hand. He curled his fingers, trying to hold on to the feel of her.
“Huh?” Her ability to switch conversational gears was truly astonishing.
She pointed to his tattoo. “You all have identical tattoos. In the hospital, I thought maybe it was a symbol of your unit or something. But I did some digging on you and your coworkers. You’re all former military. But none of you served together.”
Of course she did some digging. And probably ran into enough black holes to be curious.
When he and the others had signed on to Black Knights Inc. their service records had been redacted out the wazoo. Anyone looking would know the basics. But the specifics had been edited until their military resumes looked like swiss cheese.
“Boss and Becky run a sort of halfway house for former spec-ops soldiers.” He waved a hand back at the three-story brick factory building. “Boss was a SEAL, you see. And he knows how difficult it can be for guys like us to reacclimate to civilian life. BKI is sort of a soft place to land. And this?” He rolled up his sleeve to reveal the entirety of the eagle feather. “This represents strength and the dualities of life. Those of us who’ve made a home here get the ink to pay homage to the men we were before and to celebrate the men we are now. It’s sort of a badge of honor to say,hey we made it; we’re still here.”
For long moments she studied him as the sun grew closer to the horizon and turned the sky to the east the softest, most delicate pink. Then she offered her hand again and he didn’t hesitate to shake it.
Heeagerlyshook it.
“I didn’t like you when I first met you,” she admitted with a teasing smirk. “But you’re growing on me.”
“Like a fungus,” he quipped and felt regret when she dropped his hand.
