“That sounds about right.” She leaned against the counter. “It’s a lot of people down there.”
“Eight men. All here because of something I found in a dataset.”
“Actually, they’re all here because Travis finally let them in on what’s really going on in his life.”
“Yes, true.” I pulled the sandwiches out of the bag and started arranging them on a plate, mostly so my hands had somewhere to be. “This is going to be something really dangerous.”
“These men know danger. They’re not afraid of it.”
“But it’s my intel that’s putting them in harm’s way.”
“No, it’s the fact that not a single one of them is capable of sitting by and letting innocents suffer if they can do something about whatever it is that’s putting them in harm’s way.”
I shook my head. “You don’t even know exactly who’s down there.”
“I don’t have to. My answer would still be the same. I know the guys at Warrior Security and Resting Warrior. Every single one of them would do what is needed, regardless of personal risk.”
“There’s just so many things that could go wrong. And what if it’s my fault? They’re trusting me. Travis is trusting me.”
She picked up a sandwich half and bit into it. “I’ve been coming to this compound off and on for almost three years. Dropping off animals, picking them up—sometimes because I needed help, sometimes because I thought the animals might help Travis.”
“I think they have helped.”
“In my experience, animals always help. That’s why I started Pawsitive Connections.” Her face got dark just for a second, but she wiped away whatever memory had tried to overtake her. “Anyway, before you arrived, Travis wasn’t exactly welcoming.”
She looked around the kitchen. At my inhaler on the counter. At the legal pad with my handwriting on it. At the chair where the gray kitten had been sleeping, the one I always sat in, pulled out from the table at the angle I liked.
“And now I’m standing in his kitchen, and he’s got a full team downstairs to support himbecause you’re here,” she said. “He let you in. Not just through the door. Into thewhole thing. His house, his mission, his life. So, hell yeah, he trusts you. But it’s more than just that.”
I focused very intently on the sandwiches. “He cares about me. I know that.”
“Honey, dogs care about squirrels. That man rebuilt his entire world to make room for you.” She set her sandwich down, picked up the bag, folded it. “You don’t believe it.”
“I’m working on believing it.”
“Well, work faster. Because I know that brain of yours can.” There was no edge in it. Just warmth. She stuffed the bag under her arm, picked up her sandwich with one hand, carrier with the other. The kittens shifted inside, small sounds of protest and readjustment. “In the meantime, you do what you do and trust those men downstairs to do what they do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Call me,” she said. “Every day. I want to know you’re okay.”
We’d communicated multiple times over the past couple of weeks about the kittens, but this was very definitely moving into friendship territory. I liked it. “I will.”
She put the carrier down at the door, hugged me, picked it back up and walked to her truck. I stood there until she pulled away, the weight of the kittens’ absence already settling into the room. Their leaving marked something I didn’t want to look at too closely.
I picked up the sandwich plate and headed back downstairs.
On the stairs, I nearly ran into Beckett coming up. He caught the plate before it tipped.
“Food,” I said. “Lark brought it.”
“Of course she did. That woman operates on some kind of caretaking frequency the rest of us can’t hear.” He took the plate from me. Then he didn’t move, just stood on the step below me, holding a plate of sandwiches.
“I owe you something,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“I called him every week for three years. And every time I hung up, I’d sit there and wonder if he was okay. If he was eating. If he’d be alive the next time I called.” His jaw worked. “And Icouldn’t do a damn thing about any of it from the other end of a phone and rarely could get him to let me inside.”
