Saber was one of Aiden’s ATF SRT members, and until now, I’d liked the guy. A heads up would’ve been nice, or perhaps he didn’t figure Aiden needed one with Sasha. Just how close had they been? From the way she was eating him up with her gaze, pretty darn close.
“No,” Aiden said. “I just moved home.”
The way he said the wordhomemade my stomach squishy because it felt like he included me in that statement. Maybe I just wanted that, but by the stiffening of Sasha’s shoulders, she reached the same conclusion. Not that my mood depended on a man, but still. I felt a lot of things for this one, and I also felt no need to delve into those feelings quite yet. Right now, my curiosity began to filter into the irritation of the day.
“What’s the case?” Aiden asked.
Sasha took one more look at me and then apparently gave up trying to get rid of me. “How blown is your cover with the Lordes motorcycle club?”
Aiden frowned. “Most members were arrested and I replaced members with my ATF team, but we busted a gun trafficking operation undercover after that, and I’d say the cover is shaky. Not blown and no public record tying me with the ATF, but anybody trying to connect dots would be suspicious if they had half a brain.”
I thought the Lordes were in the past. Wishful thinking.
“Why?” Aiden asked.
“I have a line on Barensky,” she said.
He pushed off from the wall. The tension in the room heightened. “Barensky went under after we busted most of his organization. What kind of a line do you have?”
“I met with his representative in Denver, and I hinted that I had connections to a motorcycle club that would carry out a campaign for a lucrative payment,” she said. “I knew about your investigation with the Lordes, and the location is perfect. Barensky’s client is going to hit certain locations in Seattle, and Barensky doesn’t have the manpower to deliver because of us.”
Aiden rubbed the scruff across his rugged jaw. “Has the Op been sanctioned by headquarters?”
“Yes,” Sasha said. “The director wants to meet with us in Seattle Wednesday, but I thought I’d speak with you first.”
I bet she did. I’d tried to be patient. “Who’s Barensky?”
Aiden was taking the op. I could tell.
“He’s a terrorist who likes bombs. A lot,” he said.
Great. Just when things were calming down. I knew that shoe would drop, but I had no clue it’d involve bombs and arrive in the form of a sexy Louboutin wedge worn on the foot of Aiden’s ex.
There wasn’tenough pineapple on the pizza. I sighed and looked out at Lilac Lake from sitting on the edge of Aiden’s spacious deck. The worn wooden planks were warm beneath my butt from being in the sun all day, and it wasn’t a bad way to eat a very late lunch. “You need furniture out here,” I mused.
“Yeah.” He munched on a breadstick, also watching the shimmering blue lake. He’d been quiet since Sasha had taken her leave with a kiss to his cheek. It was a good thing her red lipstick had been the stain kind, probably the expensive good stuff, and hadn’t left an imprint on his face.
“Did you love her?” I asked, my own words catching me off guard.
He watched a boat pull a talented water-skier across the bay, just beyond his small dock. “No.”
I tipped back my beer bottle and let the brew cool my throat. “Did you sleep with her?”
“You know I did.” He reached for his beer and drank it down, his voice still thoughtful. “We met on an Op and started dating during it. It’s against the rules.” Not a surprise. Aiden wasn’t much for rules.
“Did you continue dating after the Op?” I wasn’t sure I had a right to ask all of these questions, but he was answering them, so why not?
“Yes.” He angled his head to watch as the water-skier smashed head first into the waves. The guy popped up, his laugh reaching across the water. Tall pine trees cast shadows over us but framed the view to the lake beyond grass that needed to be cut.
I gulped down more beer, wishing I’d brought a bottle of wine. Beer wasn’t my thing. “Was the breakup bad?” I turned and watched Aiden’s handsome profile, wondering again how his face had been carved so perfectly. Or maybe I was wearing those proverbial rose-colored glasses. It was entirely possible, but he was handsome, no matter the yardstick used to measure that fact. “Aiden?”
He lifted one strong shoulder. “I’m not sure we really broke up.”
I coughed out beer. “What?”
He turned toward me, the blue of his eyes unreal. “We both were sent on other operations, and we lost touch. There was never a scene.”
Or a conversation. “You ended a relationship without even talking about it?” I set the bottle down. How was that possible?
