Chapter 29 #2
“Huh, yeah, guess the possibility of Reba finding love and no longer having time for her isn’t appealing... Hey, brother, you’d tell us if something was going on with you, wouldn’t you?” Blaze sounded worried.
Ghost looked him straight in the eye and lied. “Of course I would. All I’ve got going on is navigating a relationship I wasn’t expecting with someone I thought I didn’t like.”
It wasn’t all a lie, because the navigating a relationship part was real, but he’d come this far not involving his team in the plan and he wasn’t starting now. If something changed and it was safer to bring them in, he’d do it. But not yet.
“Okay.” Blaze sounded gruff. “You know we’ve got your back if you need us.”
“Know it. Appreciate it.”
Blaze looked as if he’d say more, but a couple of guys walked up to the booth, and he had to give the spiel about the range and training facility instead.
Laughter had Ghost glancing up. The women approached, drinks in hand, happy expressions on their faces. His gaze sought Diana’s. She looked back at him with clear blue eyes that made his heart squeeze in his chest.
That’s when he understood what Colleen’s vagueness meant.
The Huntress.
Diana was another name for the Greek goddess Artemis. She was the goddess of the hunt, wild animals, and the moon. She carried a silver bow, and she was a fierce protector of nature and young women. She was also a virgin.
Yeah, well, maybe his Diana wasn’t all those things, but Colleen had seen them together and she liked her riddles.
Damn meddling old woman.
The women waited until the men were gone, then Daphne pulled her clipboard from her bag.
“Your time is up in fifteen minutes, gentlemen. Kane and Ethan are on the way. Seth and Chance will take the last shift, and the part-time RSOs are at the range handling the shooters, so unless you desperately desire to return to the range, you don’t have to go back until your classes are scheduled later.
How has it been going? People interested? ”
“Yep,” Blaze said. “Told them about the trunk-or-treat coming up, too. Lots of people interested in that.”
Daphne preened. “Excellent. I really wanted a carnival, but I think a trunk-or-treat event with the safety demonstrations is timelier, especially since it’s only two weeks until Halloween. Next year, we’ll do something even better.”
He genuinely hoped they would. He hoped the range would continue in some fashion once the mission was over. For the first time since the team had arrived in Alabama, he was starting to think Sutton’s Creek might be a nice place to call home once this was over. Maybe.
Kane and Chance arrived, Ghost and Blaze got them up to speed, and then he walked out from behind the booth, relieved it was over. He was a military man, a special ops commander, someone who’d seen combat and done the things he’d had to do to keep his country safe.
He was not a salesman. He could make small talk, but he felt about as unhappy with it as Seth did. Not because it was awkward, but he was always thinking of something else he could be doing. He gave orders and they were obeyed. He didn’t talk people into things.
Diana waited with her shopping bags and her drink. Ghost walked over and took the bags from her, wrapped his hand around hers. And then, because he could, he pulled her in for a kiss. She tasted like pumpkin spice coffee. He wasn’t a fussy drink kind of guy, but he liked it.
“Thank God that’s over,” he said when he pulled away.
She laughed. “Was it really that bad?”
“Yes. It was mostly women who came to talk to us, and some of them giggled entirely too much for comfort. They weren’t interested in self-defense or shooting at all.”
“You don’t say.” She sounded amused.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he said when fresh understanding dawned. Daphne had left them to it so they’d attract the women into the booth and hopefully sell them on classes. Which then put those women in proximity of her events business on the farm. Brunches. Wedding receptions. Photography.
Diabolical.
“Daph,” he said when she came near, and the festival goers wouldn’t hear him. “Make me stand around in a booth for three hours ever again and you’re fired. Kane’s fired, too.”
Daphne stuck her tongue out at him. He barely refrained from sticking his out in return. Diana snorted as if she knew.
“You’d be lost without me,” Daphne said.
“You can be replaced.”
“I doubt that. You’re welcome to try.”
She wasn’t wrong. She was super organized, and she was a whiz with the accounting spreadsheets. Still, it was part of the game to threaten her. “Don’t tempt me.”
She stuck her tongue out again and walked away.
He turned to Diana. “Are you done shopping, or you want to look around some more?”
“I didn’t get a hayride yet, and I still want to get some candles. I was saving them for last because they’ll be heavy.”
“Okay. You want to go on a hayride?”
“Don’t you?”
He looked at the tractor rolling around the square with a wagon attached.
There were bales of hay all around the perimeter of the wagon and people were seated inside, looking at the sights.
Exposed. Easily picked off. His military brain told him all the reasons why it was a bad idea.
He couldn’t disappoint her though. This wasn’t a war zone, and enemy combatants weren’t lurking in the streets.
“Sure. Why not?”
Her smile was worth the indignity of perching on hay bales while a farmer drove them through town. He pulled her toward the place to get tickets.
“You wouldn’t really fire her,” Diana said.
“Nope. But I give her shit because she likes to get a rise out of me.”
“You oblige her with a reaction.”
“Yeah. Not sure how it started, but she had a shitty family before she landed here. I think she sees me as some kind of father figure since hers was so bad. So she pushes and tests, and I growl and bitch and threaten. Makes her happy.”
Her smile lingered. “Makes you happy, too.”
It wasn’t a question. Diana got things about him he didn’t have to explain.
He didn’t know how yet, but he sensed they were alike in many ways.
One day, she’d explain what had happened to make her hate Viktor Dashevsky so much.
He figured that was the thing they shared—a tragedy that changed the course of their lives somehow.
“I didn’t start that way, but yeah, makes me happy to spar with her like she’s a teenager testing boundaries.
When she first came to us, we thought she was a lot younger.
I guess I still think of her as a twenty-three-year-old starting out in life instead of the twenty-eight year old she really is.
” He squeezed her hand as they rolled up to the hayride line.
“I’m glad you made things so she could stay. I know it wasn’t easy.”
She shrugged, but there was pink in her cheeks.
“I never want people to think my accomplishments are due to my connections. I want to succeed on my own merits the way you do. The way your friends do.” She sighed.
“But sometimes they’re a good thing and using them to affect the kind of outcome I never could on my own is worth it.
Daphne’s happiness—her life—is worth a lot more than my pride. ”
He couldn’t agree more. When he’d first learned about her connections, he’d been pissed.
He’d thought she was a spoiled little princess who got her way, and who’d barreled into his mission when she had no business there.
He’d wanted to see her fail, and he’d wanted to laugh when she did.
Her showing up in tears because the Dashevsky investigation was taken away from her should have been a relief.
Instead, it’d bothered him to see her so shaken. Because Diana was the kind of woman who would sacrifice her pride to do the right thing. She’d cared about Daphne and Kane’s happiness even though they’d meant nothing to her.
No, her connections weren’t the soft-landing he’d always thought they were. To her, they were a hindrance. And that said a lot about her integrity.
“I’m liking you a little more today,” he teased.
Her smile was soft. “Jury’s still out on you, but I think this hayride might help.”
He put his mouth to her ear. “And if I lick you until you scream for me later?”
She made a little sound in her throat. “That never hurts.”