He'd been a different person back then. That person had believed in things like institutional trust, the fundamental decency of his colleagues, and the idea that if you built something good, it would be used that way.
That person had been way too idealistic and not to mention a damn fool.
He had his laptop open on the table beside his plate, running a passive scan of the local network traffic as well as the feed of the security cameras he’d hacked into. His backpack was on the bench beside him rather than on the floor because a backpack on the floor was one someone could easily grab.
He lifted his coffee and took a long sip, savoring the flavor. It might be a few days to a week before he had anything but unfiltered cowboy coffee to serve as his caffeine intake. He'd adapted to living in a tent, but it was still a struggle to go without good coffee.
As he set his mug back down and reached for his fork, Praline, the server, appeared at the end of his table as if she'd materialized from a vortex he hadn’t seen.
"You need a refill, sugar?" She held the pot upright. Her smile was wide, and her blue eyes, while pretty, were like that damn flower from the movie The Little Shop of Horrors, because he wondered if they were going to devour him.
"Please," Gideon said, and meant it, because the coffee was genuinely the best thing about the last few days.
Praline was somewhere in her mid-thirties, with hair the color of a wheat field in August, piled high in a way that suggested structural engineering, and an accent that had no business being this far north—and in Canada.
He guessed she might have been from Texas because of the way she stretched her vowels like taffy and every sentence ended like it was an invitation to agree.
"Anything else?" She leaned her hip against the table.
"I’m good." He shifted his gaze toward his screen.
"You’re always in here on your computer," Praline said, setting the pot on the table.
"Getting a head start on the workday."
"What do you do?" She’d been flirting with him from the moment he'd walked in, and Praline was anything but subtle.
Praline wasn’t his type. She was nice enough. Pretty enough, in an outspoken way, though looks weren’t always what attracted him to women. But the one thing he didn’t care for in anyone was the inability to read the room.
"Boring stuff." He shifted in the booth, doing his best to be polite, yet discouraging. And he sure as hell didn’t make eye contact. Not again. She seemed like the kind of woman who'd interpret even the barest of smiles as an invitation to sit on his lap.
"I bet you live your life on adrenaline."
Most people, when they heard what he’d done for a living, figured he was an introvert who didn’t know how to people. And worse, that he was a basement dweller who never got out. Not even to do the grocery shopping. The truth was the complete opposite. Or, at least, it used to be. He loved sports. Loved things like white-water rafting, downhill skiing, mountain climbing—anything that got his blood pumping.
"And you look like one, too."
Now, that was a line if he’d ever heard one, and he wasn’t falling for it. His ego wasn’t that big. "Looks can be deceiving." Shit. He shouldn’t have moved his lips. His words weren't meant to prolong the discussion, yet he realized she might interpret them as interest.
"Do you have any plans this weekend?" She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and framing her cleavage.
It was impossible to miss and made more prominent when she reached across the table, gliding her fingertips over the shoulder straps of his backpack as if she were touching fine silk. "This pack looks like it’s seen better days."
"It was my dad's." One of the few things he still had from that time in his life, and he didn’t like her fondling it. He reached for it, doing his best not to act like a total dick as he pushed it further away.
She lifted her hands. "We've got a pie baking contest happening Friday night. I’m making peach, and you look like a man who likes peach pie."
Gideon let out a long breath. He’d been raised to be a gentleman, and most of his life, he’d been just that. But this woman was wearing his patience thin.
"I do," he said. "But I’ve got plans all weekend. With my girlfriend." Lying had never come naturally. Even in situations like this where a small lie was intended to spare feelings, he always carried that good old Canadian guilt.
However, these last two months, he hadn’t felt guilty about much, and he hoped this wouldn’t be any different. He had planned a mission, and he wasn’t going to stop until he’d completed it. Whatever happened after that, he’d live with the consequences.
"Girlfriend, huh?" Praline stood tall, curling her fingers around the coffee pot. "How long?"
"It’s new." That was the best he could do on short notice. He took no pride in hurting Praline.
"If your girlfriend can bake a pie, she’s welcome to enter the contest."
