He nodded. “Sure, but for now, let’s get you some food. I can cook eggs and bacon, or we can do bagels with cream cheese for breakfast.”
“Bagels sound good. Can I help?”
“Sure.” He motioned to some fruit he’d set out on the counter. “How about if you slice up some of that to go with it?”
“I can do that.”
He handed me a cutting board, and I pulled a knife out of the knife block on the counter and got to work.
“Do you cook much?” he asked me.
“Not often. I enjoy cooking for friends, but it seems like a lot of work just for me. How about you?”
“I mostly just toss some meat on the grill and have it with a salad. It’s easy.”
“I buy those pre-prepared meals at the grocery store that you just have to toss in the oven. They aren’t the best, but I figure they’re healthier than fast food.” I put the kiwi slices on a plate and reached for a handful of strawberries to cut up next. “What are we going to do all day?”
“I don’t know. We can go for a walk, watch some movies, or if you’re a reader, there are plenty of books to choose from. Oh, we also have some puzzles. Wyatt’s really into jigsaw puzzles, word searches, and crosswords. Oh, and those ones where you have to fill in the grid with the numbers. There’s a little bit of everything in the closet over there.” He pointed at a door in the living room, next to the bathroom.
I looked up from the strawberry I was cutting and grinned. “I think I’d like Wyatt. I do love a good puzzle. I haven’t done a jigsaw puzzle in ages, but my grandmother always had one going. She even had a special table she used for nothing but puzzles.”
“Well, we don’t have a special place, but after we eat, we can clear off the table, and you can pick one to put together.”
I paused to take a drink of my tea. “So is Wyatt the tea drinker? You seem to prefer coffee.”
He laughed. “No, the tea’s for Mabel Jenkins. She lives around here. She and my grandfather were friends, and anytime shehears that me or Wyatt are in town, she stops by and drops off homemade things for us. This time it was salsa. She likes to have an afternoon cup of tea when she visits, so I keep some around for her.”
“That’s sweet of her, and of you.”
I popped a grape into my mouth and then set to work pulling a fair number of them off the bunch. By the time he got the bagels toasted and a couple of mini-tubs of cream cheese on the table, we had a decent plate of fruit to eat from.
We’d just sat down when Crowe’s phone rang. He looked at it. “It’s Wolfe.”
He answered the phone, and I sat there and ate my bagel while they talked.
“We’re okay here for a few days, but after that we would need to go to town for supplies, and I’d rather not have Noah that exposed…Yeah, if someone could get us one of the tanks, I would feel a lot better about that… Sure, here let me put you on speaker.”
He pressed a button and put the phone on the table between us.
“Hey, Noah. You hanging in there?” Wolfe asked.
“I am.”
“Okay, we have a plan to get you from there to here. I’ll be sending one of the guys to get you in one of our armored vehicles. You’ll be a lot safer out on the road in one of those.”
“Thank you, Wolfe. I don’t know how I would get through this without y’alls help.”
“Well, the good news is you don’t have to figure that out, because you have it. I’ll get back in touch with you as soon as I know our ETA.”
Crowe picked the phone up, took it back off speaker, and listened as Wolfe said something to him. He picked up what was left of his bagel, then he locked eyes with me. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked out the back door, and I watched through the window as he paced while he talked to Wolfe. Every so often, he would glance in the house and give me what I took as a reassuring smile, but I knew they were talking about me. I just hoped Wolfe didn’t decide I was too much trouble. I couldn’t pay them, and I knew their services were pricey.
A few minutes later, Jackson walked back in. “Sorry about that. We needed to talk about some business pertaining to the camp.”
“It’s fine. Did he have any idea how long I might have to stay in Vesper?”
“No, we don’t even know for sure who the enemy is. Like he told you yesterday, he has his suspicions, but that’s all they are at this point. Are you in a hurry to get back?”
