My job is to protect her physical well-being, not concern myself with emotional baggage I can’t even deal with for myself.
I make a mental note about her anxiety and the possibility of her being a flight risk, then focus on what I can control. The patrols on her home. The detail that follows her every move. The cameras that track visitors as they come and go.
Not the sadness that makes my chest hot when she presses her forehead to her fucking bulletproof window.
Another flash, another vision that has me screwing my eyes shut tight.
It’s the same child, reaching out a hand. Is she reaching for me? Why is she crying? I blink and another vision assaults my senses. Honeybees float around her. That same shy smile I saw today on Clover.
This was supposed to be an easy job, but the longer I sit here, outside her home, the more I realize nothing about Happiness, Georgia, is going to be easy.
Because I’m starting to suspect that everything I need revolves around this little Honeybee.
A shadow fallsover my car.
My hand is on my weapon before I register the sheer size of the man standing outside my window, completely blocking out the light from the streetlamp behind him. He has to be six five, built like a linebacker who never stopped lifting, with a face that’s seen decades of weather and a gaze that misses nothing. And he’s holding a casserole dish.
In the middle of the fucking night.
What the hell is wrong with the people in this town?
I roll down the window a few inches, keeping my hand near my holster.
The giant doesn’t speak. He just studies me with the kind of quiet assessment that reminds me of our best interrogators at Styx and Stone.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
He attempts to thrust the dish through the three inches of open window.
I don’t take it. Instead, I scan our surroundings. “It’s three in the morning,” I remind him.
“Yep.” His voice is deep, unhurried, like a man who has never had to raise his voice to be heard.
I’ve faced down criminals, terrorists, men with nothing left to lose. None of them has ever unnerved me quite like this silent giant holding a casserole in the dead of night.
Is this old man trying to poison me? Could he be Clover’s stalker?
It’s the kindness, the concern that flashes through his eyes like lightning that I don’t know what to do with.
“Agnes saw your car,” he finally says with what feels like relief. His shoulders droop forward, if only a fraction, and the lines of his face soften. “She texted the tree, so I told them I’d check it out.”
“Texted the tree?” I mutter.
“Emergency system. Whole town’s on it.” He pushes the dish toward me again. “Are you here to protect or hurt her? ’Cause I know Rip is just a few cars up the road. Doesn’t make sense to have two of you here.”
“Protect,” I say. “Always. My cousin owns Styx and Stone Security, the company Greyson Reyes hired to protect her.” I don’t tell him I’m also an owner. After my accident, my aunt kept me out of the spotlight, and letting Roman handle things now, as the face of our company, allows me to work in the field without fear of being recognized.
He holds my gaze for a long moment. He must find whatever he’s looking for because he nods once—a single, decisive motion—and shoves the baking dish through the window.
I grab it before it ends up in my lap.
“Tuna. Diner’s recipe.” He straightens to his full height, blocking out the streetlight once again. “I’m Moose. I live down the street.”
“Why do you have a warm casserole at this time of night?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me as I set the dish on the passenger seat.
“Agnes texted,” he says.
It answers nothing.
