Chapter Nine
TOM
Bryce Reynolds was nothing like the career-hungry people Tom dealt with on a daily basis. He said what he meant and asked what he wanted to know, but Tom didn’t mistake that straightforwardness for lack of astuteness, not for an instant.
His mind flicked back over the dossier he’d read on Bryce, and he had to firmly shut it out of his mind. It felt like cheating. Also, it didn’t tell him the important things, likewhyBryce had made certain choices.
“Anywhere else you want to look?” Bryce asked.
And with a rush of disappointment, Tom remembered he was here to work. Not to sit in the fall sunshine with a long-limbed guy with the easiest smile and warmest eyes he’d ever seen.
“Honestly, I don’t much like your barn,” he said. “It’s the perfect distance for cover if someone wants to rush the house. I want to check out the approaches on the far side.”
“Maybe what it needs is a bit of Chaos and Mayhem,” Bryce mused.
The light in his eyes let Tom know he’d said it on purpose, wanting Tom to ask what he meant.
“If you say so,” was all he said.
But Bryce’s disappointed expression was too much to ignore. Okay, then, he’d bite. “What—or who—are Chaos and Mayhem?”
Bryce grinned, and Tom was glad he’d asked, because that smile was like basking in sunshine.
“You’ve already seen Mayhem, planting her flag on the feed-shed roof. Chaos is the other little demon. If anything, she’s even worse. At least, she was until Colby came along, but now she spends half of each day trotting around behind him, like he’s bewitched her.”
It was the perfect opening to ask about Colby, but Tom couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to break the quiet ease that had settled between them, and he was also fairly certain Bryce would refuse to answer.
“And you think the goats would, what—fight off intruders?” Tom asked instead.
Bryce shuddered. “They would bemorethan capable. But I was thinking more about the noise they’d kick up if someone walked past when they were shut in a stall. It would give us warning.” He wrinkled his nose. “On the other hand, they’d probably raise Cain every time so much as a mouse stirred in their stall, so perhaps that’s not one of my better ideas.”
He stood up, stretching in a way that caused the hoodie to raise and reveal a sliver of skin as he looked out over the view below. Then he turned to Tom, and caught the direction of his eyes. A smile dawned, and he ran his eyes over Tom in turn, slow and appreciative.
The moment lasted, longer than it should, assomethingflickered between them.
But then Tom glanced away, letting the tension between them ease away. From the faint shift in Bryce’s expression—something tight around the eyes, quickly hidden—he guessed he wasn’t the only one struggling to keep a line drawn between professional and personal.
However tempting Bryce was, Tom didn’t sneak any sideways glances when they both stripped and put their stuff back in the stash box. It felt too close to crossing that line. He was glad Bryce appeared to be of a similar mind, because just being this close to Bryce when both were naked, even with nothing sexual about it, was doing odd things to his breathing.
He was relieved to shift and make his way back down the hill in Bryce’s tracks, noting possible ambush points as they moved.
After shifting and dressing again at the house, they crossed the yard toward the barn. Made of solid, weathered wood, its wide doors stood open. And Tom didn’t like it any more than he had the previous day. Sure, as barns went, it was fine. It was the positioning he had a problem with.
Bryce walked beside him, comfortable and easy. “Heads up,” he said with a grin. “We’re about to be attacked.”
He wasn’t wrong. As soon as they stepped inside, a black goat trotted out of a nearby stall, eyed Tom with unsettling intelligence, then gave a disdainful flick of her tail and wandered over to nudge Bryce in the thigh.
Bryce crouched immediately, ruffling the goat behind the ears. “There’s my little nightmare. Have you been bullying the chickens again?”
A low laugh answered him. Tom turned to see Tristan stepping out of one of the stalls, pitchfork in hand, straw in his hair and a smear of dirt on one cheek.
“The chickens start it,” he said. “Oh, hey, Tom. How’s it going?”
“Yeah, good,” Tom said, and smiled because something about Tristan just had that effect on him.
“So, Councilor Steadman’s definitely going to be one of the ones visiting us?” Tristan checked. “Do you think she’d—I mean, I’d love to ask her what she thinks about this move to get shifter deaths treated the same way as those of non-shifters, because of course we want more integration but that’s going to be—”
“Tris,” Bryce said. It was gentle, and it was fond. “Maybe give Tom a chance to do what he’s here for before you pin him down on policy minutiae?”
