"I'm not on board with her being used as bait." Benjamin folded his arms, his expression hard.
A little spark of irritation went off inside of me, and I frowned up at Benjamin. Who was he to tell me what I could or couldn't do when he planned on leaving, anyway? He'd called Ghost. He'd essentially handed me over to someone else so he could go back to whatever he was supposed to do in Oregon. What had he thought would happen? I looked at Ghost defiantly. "I'm fine with it."
"Evie," Benjamin practically growled.
Ghost bobbed a look between us. His expression slowly tightened with some kind of understanding. "Oh." Silence stretched, and then he looked back down at the tablet. "Anyway, red zones and green zones."
"Back up." Benjamin turned to me, clearly trying to intimidate me with his stormy expression. It almost worked because,damn, he was scary when he wanted to be. "You're not putting yourself in danger again. You've taken enough risks as it is."
"Sometimes a little risk is worth the reward," I shot back. He stared, apparently at a loss as to how to respond to that.
Ghost subtly shifted his gaze from me to Benjamin again. He cleared his throat. "We will keep her safe. You have my word."
Benjamin shook his head, looking away. "I guess I don't have a say, do I?"
Fizzing outrage that was already bubbling over my breaking point prompted me to add, "No, you don't."
Ghost looked like he was praying for patience. "As I said, this red zone is where we want to lure them, but there are other weak spots. Here," he said, pointing to the road that led from a cemetery down to my property, "here," he pointed to a place I knew my fence was deteriorated on the south side, "and here." He finished with my gate.
"What's wrong with my gate?" I frowned. Ghost and Benjamin both gave me long, silent looks. I glanced down at my bruised wrists. "Oh, I see."
"We're going to lure them to this red zone," Ghost said, zooming in on the abandoned barn again, "but Evie, as soon as they show up, I want you to retreat to this location." He scrolled over the map and over to a corner of the field where I kept my bees. It was near the barn, maybe forty yards away. "I'll have a secure van there with more personnel on hand in case one of them slips past us." Benjamin opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to add something, so Ghost quickly added, "But they won't."
They stared each other down, but Benjamin clacked his teeth together and didn't add anything else. I tried to focus on the plan and not the way that Benjamin wouldn't look me in the eyes. "Let's do it. The sooner we resolve this and make my family safe again, the better."
Ghost tapped his tablet off and picked it up. "My team is arriving in a few minutes, so we'll keep busy." He gave both of us a long, unreadable look and then turned to leave. "I'll check-in after a bit."
He exited through the front door, and then I was left standing next to Benjamin, both of us tight with folded arms andstormy silence. Finally, he moved, going into the kitchen. "I'll make breakfast."
"You don't have to," I started to object.
"Evelyn," he replied crisply, turning to face me finally, "I'm not going anywhere."
My spine snapped straight, and my arms loosened a touch. "Okay."
His sharp features softened. "Stop trying to get rid of me."
Hearing him echo what he'd said last week was like breathing life back into my frozen body. My lips rippled, fighting a smile. "Right."
"I'm not due back at work until Monday," he clarified, turning back to the kitchen to sift through my bare fridge and cupboards. We hadn't actually gotten any food from my order yesterday. "I'll stay and make sure you have someone with you during this insane thing you insist on doing."
"You're angry I'm doing it," I said, interpreting rather than guessing.
"Yes, I'm angry," he shot back like that should have been obvious. He paused with his hand on the open fridge door, staring me down. "You could have died last night Evelyn."
My heart squeezed, although whether it was with pain or pleasure that he cared, I couldn't quite tell. "I know."
He shook his head, bending down to inspect the contents of the fridge. "Like I said. I'll do what I can."
I joined him in the kitchen slowly. "You've done more than enough. If you need to return to—if you don't want to stay, you don't have t?—"
He straightened so fast, it startled me. I backed up against the counter and he followed me, his eyes licking flames of blue fire and his mouth a firm line. In contrast, he cupped my jaw tenderly, waging some internal war instead of speaking. Thenhis watch buzzed. He glanced at it, and with a tight sigh, he muttered, "Let me answer this. But we need to talk."
I nodded mutely, trying to understand this confounding man. What on earth was going through his head?
Chapter Twenty-Three
FROST
