That mention of plans not changing was about Omen coming. Wasn’t it? Thankfully the phraseology kept any spying ears from understanding. But why didn’t he want that to happen? Hadn’t he been adamant about getting her to safety? “What?”
Turning his gaze to hers seemed to hurt, likely tugging his stitches. There was a concern in those pretty blue eyes. Guilt. A knowing.
“What?” she repeated with a laugh she didn’t feel.
“I don’t want?—”
Two raps on wood startled them both, then a second later, the tent flap adjusted. “Hello? Food for you.”
Though Apollo stood as Chacha entered carrying a wood tray piled with meats and vegetables, Leighton found herself paralyzed by the two words he’d spoken before the knock. He didn’t want… What? What didn’t he want?
Me?
It was a silly thought, considering she was just a mission to him. Mercy, after all they’d been through, the truth of that stung.
“You okay?” Apollo returned to the couch, eyeing the meat on the ottoman. “You’ve got that look again.”
Surprise lifted her gaze to his. “What look?”
“The cornered-rabbit look.” He gave a weak smile as he chose a kebab and tugged off a cube of cooked meat, then paused. “Look, hey, I know I said some mean things at the clinic. I wasn’t myself.”
It was easy to wave that off. Not so much that he might not want her. She hated that the thought was in her head now and tried to rebuff it.
Maybe she should ask him about it and get it over with. “Before the food arrived, you’d said you didn’t want something, then got interrupted.” She eased onto the floor and picked up some cheese from the tray, daring to look up at him.
Guarded, tense, he watched her. Sighed. Pulled the meat from the kebab. “Your suggestion at the clinic…”
When he didn’t finish again, she eyed him, saw him lift his eyebrows in meaning—a reminder that the room could be bugged.
She nodded that she understood.
“It’ll probably happen.”
Her heart skipped a beat, locked in his gaze. “That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah.” He focused on the food, chewing. Picking another. “I just…” There he went again, not finishing his thought. “I hate not knowing where or when that change will happen. But here is smart.”
“Here.” Which would mean tomorrow.
He ate a roasted vegetable. “Yeah.”
“And you don’t want that change to happen tomorrow?” How did that make sense? He’d been all about getting her to agree to an escape.
His expression seemed sheepish. “Yeah,” he conceded. “They gave me a way to know”—he tapped his ear and lifted his eyebrows in meaning—“but I think I dropped it. It’s gone.”
His ear…oh, a communication ear piece. Wait— “You lost it?”
Apollo looked chagrined. “Go easy on the wounded hero, okay?”
That made her falter, but questions were zipping through her fried mind. “How will we know…if plans change?”
He hesitated, then lowered himself to the floor next to her. “So, you’d go…?”
Yes, she would. But it felt too easy to say that. Too careless.
Leighton leaned back against the couch and wiped her hands. Eyed the raw, stitched flesh of his jaw, a painful reminder of the very real threat to them that existed. “Knowing someone is trying to arrange my death, putting you in danger…” she whispered and shifted to face him. “Swear to me Ummi is safe.”
“Last I knew…” He, too, kept his words very quiet.
